Take a swift punch to the gut and throw up and you’ve got the start of a good recipe for a show. All you need now is the hard-hitting beats and punk energy of Summer Cannibals’ new album Show Us Your Mind and you’re cooking.
The album is full of energy front to back. The grungy and fuzzed out guitar keeps up much of that energy, but singer Jessica Boudreaux manages to temper some of the knife’s-edge riffs with sweet, even hooky melodies. Occasionally you’ll hear harmonies as Jessica belts it out about a relationship that is going down the tubes. But any sign that the band might slow down and trade in their beat up instruments for pop outfits is given up on a dark track like “Afraid To Feel”, which churns along like blood pumping through the neck.
All the pieces come together on Summer Cannibals second album. Jessica Boudreaux shows herself to be a powerhouse vocalist, much in the same vein as Patti Smith. (Patti wrote a song called “Summer Cannibals”. Coincidence?) And the rest of the band provides a perfect complement to her soaring melodies. You’d be inclined to feel sentimental for the bands of the ‘90s if you had time while the album drives along.
If you’re feeling the hungry sort of restlessness of a long day at work—maybe a customer spilled mustard on your shirt or a dog got off its leash and ran amok in the kitchen—“Show Us Your Mind” is the perfect digestif to sooth your day. Simply turn up the speakers, sit back and let all the mundane frustrations float away on some good, straightforward and head-banging rock n’ roll.