Green works in the same territory as Hardly Art label mate La Sera, “Kickball” Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls fame, as well as former tour companions Dum Dum Girls and Jeff The Brotherhood. Her tracks are lean, stripped of anything glistening but instead laying bare her functionally fun guitar lines and sugary sneer. Describing last year’s ep ,Cujo, with Identity Theory, “I wanted it to be really poppy and melodic and sweet of course, but also moody and kinda sad.” This isn’t a new palette, see the Ramones, but it’s the perfect setting for her sunny burnt out jams.
The use of effects on Sock It To Me doesn’t go beyond a tinny drum machine and multi-tracking Green's voice. Check “Only One” where she barely harmonizes on a call-and-response “I really love my boyfriend/She really loves her boyfriend.” It’s plainspoken and unfeeling, giving you a second to doubt. The vocal separation from sincerity gives it teeth, a disconnection from the cliché chorus. Green’s singing suggests stoned resignation, dismissing insecurities with a heavy sigh. Debuting “Heavy Shit” on Nylon, she introduced the track as “trying to deal with things inside your brain that are sometimes un-deal-with-able, and it's so hard to go [at] it alone…The shit becomes all you think about, all you can focus on, and it drags you down." Which speaks to one of the most appealing things about this record, it’s fun and punchy, but it’s also a total bummer.
Green is at her best when she does let a little inflection enter her voice—which is more conversational than musical—like on “Time in the World.” The song bounces with the drum machine that sounds like it could be programmable by floppy, as Green coos along “I’m just so happy you’re mine now.” Its infectiousness provides a needed break after the monochromatic opener “Only One.” Meanwhile, on “Close to You,” there’s another edition of Green, here with goth-y synths recalling Joy Division’s dread. Green’s voice is once again transformed, almost breathless and shaken as she sings “When I’m alone I feel like I could die.” When the guitar comes in towards the end of the track, surprisingly huge and cavernous, it’s a shock. It takes you away from her usual garage bubblegum for a minute, giving you an impression of where she could take her music next.
In the video for “Taxi Driver,” Green drives at night with—judging by her press photos and all the live photos I’ve seen—ubiquitous sunglasses. The escapist fantasy of being awake while everyone else sleeps, sober while everyone else is drunk, is given shape when she sings, “I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody.” It’s a removal from any semblance of normality and from the same sun she got closer to when she moved to Los Angeles from Boston.
Green makes a transition from straight up garage revivalist on her 2012 album Milo Goes To Compton to something more in-between on Sock It To Me. Careening from style to style; she’s able to collage together a better album. It’s a similar trajectory to Dum Dum Girls, who have grown into one of the most consistently strong and versatile bands going from more lo-fi beginnings, but she’s not nearly at that level yet. For now, Sock It To Me will sound good blasting from your car with the windows down, with or without anybody in the back-seat.
Grade: B
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