the raincoats - the raincoats

The Raincoats are post-punk at it's absolute finest. Angry, powerful, fierce, experimental, and incredibly original, all while championing the female rock band without the image's pitfalls. This album belongs in the same category as This Heat, the Pop Group, and the countless other abrasive acts that flourished in the wake of British punk's searing double-edged impact of violent Sex Pistol angst and smart Clash rebellion.

Where other post-punk bands took their music in a deliberately chaotic direction, the Raincoats are based thoroughly on their punk roots. Their sound brings to mind the Slits, in large part because of Slit drummer Palmolive's trademark uneven style, but also for the vague reggae influence found throughout the album. Yet where the Slits were drenched in their overproduced, unnecessary reggae sound, the Raincoats don't allow themselves to be pigeonholed so easily. The dense, antagonistic violin work of Vicky Aspinall that makes an appearance halfway through the album completely derails any solid Slits comparison, blatantly copping John Cale's screaming viola sounds a la "Heroin," yet never pushing it to the forced degree that their post-punk contemporaries tended to. (Or that John Cale tended to, for that matter.) The guitar work throughout is far from pristine, yet hardly brings to mind the sheer lack of talent that haunted the Slits. The band as a whole is uneven without any fear of complete derailment, flawed without coming off as amateurish, and ultimately pulls off one of the most ideologically sound punk performances I've ever heard.

It's here that the music becomes so impressive: it's post-punk with restraint. It's miles beyond the three-chord punk from '77, yet doesn't descend into the droning noise and obnoxious anti-pop tendencies that characterized post-punk before no-wave took it to the logical extreme. It's smart, it's primitive as hell, and it's startlingly defiant, without having to make it so damn obvious. The Slits could've learned a thing or two from them.