Fluxblog
May 20th, 2022 2:02pm

In My Prayer I Don’t Speak


Mallrat “Teeth”

I read a line from Grace Shaw of Mallrat about this song where she says she thinks of this song as something that could’ve been on The OC soundtrack if it existed in 2004, and maybe that’s true, but being a little older that seems odd to me as this music is far more aligned with mid-90s alt-rock aesthetics than the corporate gloss “indie” of The OC era, though there’s obviously a fair amount of aesthetic crossover. I certainly would consider sounding like mid 90s alt-rock to be the more flattering comparison, but I would, wouldn’t I? The main reason I hear “Teeth” as part of that lineage is that it’s built around a very Kim Deal-ish bass line that throbs in a way that somehow conveys both a relaxed looseness and a vaguely sexual menace. There’s a grit and desperation to this music, a sense that you’re dealing with someone under a lot of pressure who’s not afraid to snap. Shaw deliberately conflates sex, religion, and violence in the tradition of PJ Harvey and Tori Amos, and delights in the blur of it all as if to say “why not all three?”

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