The Killgirls are product just waiting for their market. Everything is ready to go – shiny, glamorous artwork, liner credits to everyone from the producer down to the make-up artist. The bio screams out hyperbole about the (intricately staged) publicity stunts that helped launch the band and the sync licenses that have been paid for by some of Australia’s biggest sporting entities and car manufacturers. So, the system is clearly in place to rocket the band into the mainstream. Which leaves us with just the issue of the actual music…
In spite of the band’s current independent status and the role of lead vocalist, the rather svengali like figure, Mario Spate, who produced, recorded, mastered, sang and art directed the whole product, product is what it comes out the other end sounding like. There is a clear debt of influence owed to The Presets, from the sounds, to the plastic masks in the band photos, right down to the pointy bits in the font used to write the band name. But where The Presets can belt out “I’m here with all of my people” and the call to dance is undercut by a sense of impending doom that undermines any sense of escapist nonsense, the Killgirls seem to have missed the point of irony and the depth it might offer and, instead, offer such poetry as, “Wait!/I see a problem/All we wanna do is dance and romance and get some/But hold up!/I see you stumbling/Is there an issue here now ’cause all we need is your friend/Well OK!/ Here’s the solution…blah blah blah…and get your fuck to fuck on because you’re coming with me”. The track, ‘Grams And Tons’, sounds like Nine Inch Nails with all the sonically nasty bits polished out so as not to scare the party girls away. Elsewhere, clichés abound – “I’m hotter than steel”, “Yeah, I know you got the moves and you’re ready to explore”, “Touch the sky, you’ve got what I need”, “Can you feel it?”, “I want you to swallow me whole”, and so it goes depressingly on.
Musically, the whole thing is candified industrial. Bands like Pop Will Eat Itself, Caligula and Def FX explored similar terrains nearly 20 years ago, but did so with a sense of adventure and danger, not a sense of marketing. Littering in a few samples with the word “fuck” is not enough to make dangerous, progressive music, especially when you can hear exactly how they’ll be edited out to fit into the car ads on commercial TV. But, it can’t be said that the sound is not big, widescreen and polished. And, if the intended audience is the drunken masses at this summer’s big ticket festivals, I’ve little doubt that The Killgirls will get their 15 minutes in the spotlight.
Adrian Elmer
