These Bands Go Together – One

Welcome to the first These Bands Go Together. Each one of these will be a post going into a few bands and why I think they go together, followed by some examples of each band. It’s kinda simple on the face of it.

What draws them together in my mind could be as simple as a weird mental connection that makes no sense to anyone else. It could be a sound, a lyrical connection, who knows.

The important part is that, for me, they are somehow a set, and maybe you’ll find a new band. Maybe you’ll just be baffled I linked a band you hate with one you love. Who can say. Sometimes I’ll have a short-hand way to refer to the collective I’ve settled on, sometimes not. Consider all this the boilerplate intro for each one of these posts. Let’s get to specifics!

Today we’re gonna be lumping together Deap Vally, Ex Hex, Bat Fangs, Slothrust, Ayria, and Detroit Cobras.

Where Deap Vally/Ex Hex/BatFangs (I should quickly mention Ex Hex and Bat Fangs are the same singer/song writer so sometimes they sound very similar) can mix a sort of post-punk vibe with glam rock, Slothrust takes the heavy guitar tone and mixes it with everything from the afore-mentioned, but also slides in psychedelic rock. Ayria leans a bit heavier, and far more electronic, than the others. Detroit Cobras are firmly garage rock and though they have originals they are known for taking old 50s songs and covering them as garage rock (and it is glorious).

It’s also worth noting, I think, that Detroit Cobras are the oldest band on this list, having started in the 90s. They’re also sadly not gonna be releasing anything new as the lead singer and driving force behind the band, Rachel Nagy, passed away in early 2022.

To think and talk more about the connections here that my brain makes: It’d be easy to lump it as “Women singing angry songs with good guitars and beats behind them” but that sort of over-simplification doesn’t nail it down.

They’re all, for me, in the spiritual realm that Joan Jett occupies (and if you wonder why, say, Joan Jett and Blondie, and a host of others aren’t in this lump of bands, I have no reasoning except they exist and loom even larger as solo parts of the landscape which is no reflection on quality just how my brain works). They have something to say, and often that something is in the more traditionally male end of musical lyrical spectrum – break-ups, fuck yous, anger, and just general “Well shit life is hard.”

Is that actually a male singer thing? No fuck, of course not. But we tend to lift it higher when a guy sings it. Thanks, patriarchy. And there are plenty of women singing it, many of whom aren’t on this list. These few bands just all vibe together for my head. There’s a similarity in the message, the mood, and the quality of frustration, heartbreak, disappointment, and anger.

You know what, let me give you a track or two from each band and maybe you can hear it too. By all means leave a comment and tell me if you think my brain is right on this, bands you feel fit this specific mold you for, and/or if you think I am totally off-base and these bands don’t go together.