The Coathangers
+ Curdle
Entry Requirements: 18+
In the bygone era of arena rock, concerts were a way of promoting records. Punk challenged that notion by making rock a communal experience again: the boundaries between performer and punter were blurred; anyone could start a band; and records were no longer the definitive statement of an artist's vision, but rather a way of promoting visceral and participatory live shows. In their early years, Atlanta trio The Coathangers were very much of the classic punk ethos-the band was a live entity, and the records were merely a document of the charisma and chaos projected from stage. But after 12 years of relentlessly touring on a steady flow of EPs and LPs, The Coathangers finally took a moment to recalibrate before diving into the creation of their sixth studio album The Devil You Know. After a summer break of reflection and reassessment, the band regrouped to make an album that captures all the vitality of their early years while honing their individual strengths into new communal achievements. It's a record that takes their established takes on vitriolic punk, playful house-party anthems, and heartworn ballads and melds them into a new sound that retains all their former live show glories while revealing a new level of songwriting and nuance.
"The writing process was done with an open heart," says guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel. "Everything that came before had to go away. Whatever hang-up, whatever thing we were holding onto, it had to go away. And we started there, at ground zero." This may sound like the band was going through some Hüsker Dü or Fleetwood Mac-level personal drama, but the reality is less gritty and salacious. The individual members had merely become entrenched in their way of doing things. Kugel excelled at the melodic pop songs. Drummer/vocalist Stephanie Luke belted out the gritty rock tunes. Bassist/vocalist Meredith Franco drove the post-punk and no-wave angles of the band. With each album, you could hear the individual songwriters honing their style. But with The Devil You Know, it feels like we're hearing the first Coathangers record written as a true unit. Inspired and emboldened by their experience recording Nosebleed Weekend, the band returned to Valentine Recording Studios in Laurel Canyon with Nic Jodoin, who pushed them into increasingly layered and lush sonic territories.
There's no better demonstration of this reconfigured sound than in the opening track "Bimbo", where Kugel's signature sweetness propels the verses while Luke's shout-along hooks and hammer-fisted drumming dominates the chorus. It's a pop masterpiece that touches on all the classic Coathanger traits, but delivers them all at once in a fully realized way. "I don't care what our previous image was. That's not us now," Kugel says. "I feel like this is an introduction to what we are now." And that current manifestation of The Coathangers finds the individual voices banding together, as on the throbbing rocker "Crimson Telephone". There's a hint of The Pixies' duality of seduction and fury in this critique of social media's grip on our lives, a suitable reflection of both the allure and the frustration of this new cultural phenomenon. That beauty-and-the-beast dynamic comes into play again on "Step Back", a siren song of staccato riffs, bass grooves, shrieking noise, and beguiling vocal melodies. When the band taps into their particular brand of angular skronk on "Memories", there's a masterful interplay that recalls famously tight-knit trios like This Heat and Minutemen. Even at their fiercest moments, such as on fiery "F the NRA", the band never descend to the cacophony they cranked out in their early years. "It's a conscious anger now," Kugel says of their harnessed fury. "You're navigating through it and figuring out your place in all of it, whereas the first record is more of a general statement of 'I feel mad.'" There's a newfound discipline, depth, and dimension to The Coathangers on The Devil You Know, like each member learned how to imbue their bandmates' songs with their own personal touch.
The album title stems from an old adage whispered at a friend's wedding. We settle when we're afraid of the unknown. It's a theme that runs through every song on the album, and even though the band insists they were writing songs about other peoples' pain, they acknowledge that the old saying applies to their band as well. We get comfortable, we get scared, and we refuse to change. But with The Devil You Know, The Coathangers lost their fear, and that allowed them to shed the baggage of the past. "Why are we living in these cells we built for ourselves?" Kugel asks. "That's been the great thing about this record. It's been honest and confrontational… but not in a shitty way."
Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to release The Devil You Know to the world on March 8, 2019 on CD, a limited run of 300 cassettes, digital formats, and an initial pressing of 3,000 LPs with 500 copies on MAYDAY color vinyl, 500 on LUCKY DEVIL color vinyl, and 2000 on BITTERSWEET color vinyl. The vinyl version includes foil on the cover of the LP jacket, a printed inner sleeve, and a download card.
Line Up
If you’re familiar with The Coathangers then you probably know the Atlanta group’s premise. The story goes that four young women decided to start a band for the sole purpose of being able to hang out and play parties. They weren’t going to let the fact that none of them knew how to play any instruments get in the way of their having a good time. The backstory certainly added to the charm of early songs like “Nestle In My Boobies” and “Stop Stomp Stompin’”--songs that resided somewhere between no-wave’s caustic stabs of dissonance and garage rock’s primal minimalism. In the seven years since their formation, The Coathangers have released a slew of records and toured across North America and Europe countless times. The persistence of such a casual endeavor is a testament to the infectious quality of their songs and the electric nature of their unruly live show.
Suck My Shirt is the The Coathangers’ fourth full-length. The title refers to an incident involving the salvaging of spilled tequila during the recording session for the album. While the title implies that little has changed with regards to the band’s celebratory mission statement, even just a cursory listen of their latest album demonstrates that there have indeed been changes in The Coathangers’ camp. First off, the quartet was reduced to a trio for the latest record, with keyboardist Bebe Coathanger (Candice Jones) stepping down from her duties. But the absence of keyboards isn’t nearly as noticeable of a difference as the band’s refined songwriting approach. Refinement is an attribute we expect to see in any group that has a career spanning more than a couple of years, but the extent to which The Coathangers have honed their trade with each successive album dwarfs most bands’ maturation. This isn’t to say that The Coathangers have polished their sound; the group once again worked with Ed Rawls and Justin McNeight at The Living Room to attain the same production values of their Larceny & Old Lace album and their recent slew of split 7”s. Rather, the refinement can be heard in the quality of the songs themselves. While the band retains the alluring spontaneity and happy accidents of their early releases, the trio’s current work sounds far more deliberate and locked-in than anything they’ve done in the past.
“It’s a balance between overthinking and just going for it,” guitarist Crook Kid Coathanger (Julia Kugel) says of their songwriting strategy. It’s a duality immediately apparent with the album opener “Follow Me”. It’s a classic Coathangers tune with the raspy vocals of Rusty Coathanger (Stephanie Luke) belted out over the signature grimy rock laid down by Crook Kid and bassist Minnie Coathanger (Meredith Franco). But the chorus opens into one of the most accessible hooks in the band’s canon, just before segueing into the next verse with a squall of violent dissonant guitar. From there the band launches into “Shut Up”, a title that harkens back to the brash sass of their first record. The song still has its spikey guitar riffs and shouted chorus, but here The Coathangers sound less like a jubilant version of Huggy Bear and more like the art-pop of late-era Minutemen. Dedicated Coathangers fans will recognize the re-worked versions of “Merry Go Round”, “Smother”, “Adderall”, and “Derek’s Song” from their run of limited edition split 7”s, and hearing them in the context of the album shows that these tracks weren’t merely isolated examples of the band’s more sophisticated side, but were actually demonstrative of the group’s increasing capacity for nestling solid melodic hooks and rock heft into their repertoire. By the time the band wraps up the album with the humble pop perfection of “Drive”, it’s hard to believe this was the band that garnered their reputation with raucous bombasts like “Don’t Touch My Shit”.
“Ultimately, every album is a snapshot of who we were at the time,” says Crook Kid. And while that might mean that The Coathangers in 2014 don’t feel compelled to chronicle the youthful piss and vinegar that yielded the Teenage Jesus & The Jerks-esque spasms of their debut album, it’s exciting to hear the output of the band as they explore the range of their temperaments with a broader musical palette at their disposal. Suck My Shirt is available on LP, CD, and digital formats on March 18th 2014 via Suicide Squeeze Records.
