Review: Pussy Gillette, Permanent Trash

Pussy Gillette arrived clear-eyed in 2021, issuing a spunky self-titled debut crammed with irreverent garage rock songs – mostly about sex, drugs, and rock & roll, sometimes about the atrocities of man and Christ. Hardened by subsequent touring and two more years in the Texas heat, Nathan Calhoun and Masani Negloria return with the equally everyman yet decidedly more grim follow-up, Permanent Trash. At open, singer/bassist Negloria is "So Fucked." "Made a dollar but can't pay my rent/ $2 but can't buy no food," she spits over low-end fuzz. Calhoun bends blue notes in "Time to Spare," where the bandleader proclaims: "Time means nothing when you got no future." Depression's long been an artist's inspiration, but the duo – joined by Cherubs drummer Brent Prager on record and Larry Funke onstage – spins the subject matter in a new direction with clean, classic guitar and Negloria's staccato delivery. Not speaking, not screaming, not singing, she sputters her words with a curious bravado. Is she proud to feel "no sunshine in [her] eyes or in [her] heart"? Did she really put her bare cheeks on a hot-wired car? All signs point to no, but real punks keep 'em guessing.

Pussy Gillette