by Joe Gutierrez
When one door slams shut, another creaks ominously open. Such is the case with Easthampton’s Editrix, New England guitarist Wendy Eisenberg’s post-Birthing Hips continuation of spellbinding guitar and tongue-in-cheek take-downs. The four tracks on debut Talk To Me serve as a thrilling introduction to this special new band. “Instant” takes off with an eerie blood-curdling dose of guitar before erupting into controlled chaos. Bass thumps and drums clack. Eisenberg skewers misogynistic chumps who conveniently dismiss or forget their shameful behavior, every word delivered with fangs bared. Bassist Steve Cameron and drummer Josh Daniel are fantastic at punctuating silence and space with their playing—some moments, they’re restrained, opening up room for Eisenberg’s vocals and guitar, and others, keen to take the wheel and veer off-road. Editrix creates a storm of noise, effectively demolishing monsters shirking accountability.
“Virgin” exists on another spectrum, rollicking along with a prickly riff before mutating through wild guitar jittering into the anthemic chorus, “I caught you saying that you wanna believe/you’re not so good at lying/I’m escaping by the skin of my teeth/I wasn’t asking for this”. It’s a lilting number—perhaps the most cheerful on the record—with Eisenberg’s cadence calling to mind Trish Keenan of Broadcast. The chorus pops, a delicious ear-worm reminiscent of ‘90s indie rock, something you might hear blasting from a boombox on a college campus the first week of spring. In fact, I’ve got my suspicions it’s an aural wink to Eisenberg’s feelings about Pavement and contemporary indie rock, hinted at in an old Birthing Hips interview. Who knows? Phenomenal song, nevertheless.
“She Wants To Go And Party” is a zany track showcasing the humorous lyricism and genre-hopping guitar-work Eisenberg established throughout their Birthing Hips tenure. The band takes off at breakneck velocity, skittering forward and reaching hyper-speed at the chorus, where Eisenberg frantically spews the song’s title like a millennial mantra. The song detaches from itself and instruments creak and tremble underneath goofy inquisitions into costume choices for the party. Fourth and final track “Taste” is a doozie, catching fire slowly with Eisenberg’s reserved stuttering and palm-muted guitar throughout the verses, exploding into screeching tangles for the chorus and bridge. Cameron’s bass slams underneath it all, like a semi-truck with its brakes suddenly failing. Editrix lunges into fast-forward mode as Eisenberg viciously whispers the monologue of a brazen dirtbag. The band cuts off abruptly, slightest bit of static fading swiftly and leaving us wanting more.
Eisenberg as lyricist is adept at assuming the personas of those lacking compassion and sincerity, holding up a magnifying glass to what’s twisted and troubling in our current cultural landscape. Cameron and Daniel succeed at providing a gnarled soapbox of rhythm for the songs to spring from. Talk To Me is a tasty sampler from a blender oscillating at varying speeds, mixing and mashing jazz, metal, rock, and pop. Give it a shot.