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YOUR HIGHNESS
Let’s get one thing straight, in my opinion (and it’s
only my opinion) girls cannot cut it fronting rock bands. If they’re
not in an all-girl group (which is acceptable - think of Sleater-Kinney
and The Go-Go’s) then they generally split into two camps:
the Pat Benatar school of faux-tuff duff, or the drippy tosh of
Lita Ford and Heart. There are honourable exceptions: step forward
Polly Harvey and Courtney Love (who’s nearly a man anyway),
and now Jean Hare, who fronts London trio Your Highness. Is it
time for me to backtrack on my opinions now? Not at all, the secret
to Jean’s success is that she possesses a strident edge
reminiscent of the aforementioned Ms Harvey, with balls that Courtney
would be proud of. Set against a wall of angular guitar that sounds
like a hail of razor blades dropping into a rusty sink and a drummer
who sounds like he’s racing with the Devil himself, the
only way they’d be any better was if they’d grown
up in a squat with Bikini Kill and Smashing Pumpkins. This rocks.
www.drownedinsound.com
YOUR HIGHNESS
It's a quiet Thursday night in Highbury. Very quiet in fact, there
are less than thirty people milling around the punk rock scout
hut that is Upstairs @ The Garage when Your Highness take to the
stage. The silence is shattered very abruptly. Big dirty rock
guitar careers over thuddering basslines and a tunefully screaming
female vocal. Essentially it's Hole with more oomph and less theatrics.
The quiet bit loud bit formula is deployed efficiently throughout
and although in no way original Your Highness certainly have something
of a rock bitch from hell quality about them. Thumbs up. |
