Salvation Magazine Issue 1 - Magazine - Page 8
Raw Power
ALL THE
RAGE!
Are these punk chicks angry, a little bit cross or full-on frocks
in a strop? Curious, and ready for a scrap Salvation’s mildly
dysfunctional but rather happy, Lou Hellbaby, tracked down
Lady Rage to the Queen’s Head in London’s Brixton where they
were playing live, baptizing ‘sluts’ and annexing the men’s toilets.
A few years ago, a young woman was taking a stroll along
a beach when she heard the sounds of sobbing. Curious,
she went to investigate and found three beautiful, crying,
mermaids sitting on some rocks off the shore.
“Fair maidens, what dost ail thee to weep so heavily?” she
enquired.
The smallest of them looked up through a veil of tears on
her eyes.
“We are princesses of the kingdom of Atlantis and our
father has decreed that we must be married off to various nobles of the Sea for political gain. We begged him to
change his mind but he said the only way he’d let us free
of this arrangement was if we could form a band… Alas
we are but one short… And have only bass, drums and
vocals!!”
“Well then, that’s lucky!” exclaimed the woman, “because
I can play guitar!”
A
ccording to red-haired guitar-slinger aBomb,
this is the 100% officially true origin story of the
band Lady Rage. She’d have you believe she was
bitten by a radioactive guitar at a pop concert as a child,
and thus foretold her future band would save the world
with their music, in the style of ‘Bill and Ted’. Interestingly, the mermaid origin story, isn’t a million miles from
the truth though. Lead singer Siren Sycho does indeed
have ‘siren’ as a name. They came together specifically to
form an all-girl punk rock band, although not to evade
arranged marriage to
under-sea toffs and you
can get the feeling that
these women could
lead a misguided soul
to their death, ‘pon
jagged rocks, ‘midst a
raging storm, and respond only with grins!’
You can swap out scaly
tails for fishnets and
boots; but these women can definitely enthral and captivate the
unsuspecting amongst
you. There’s something
unquestionably Fae about lead singer Siren Sycho. I don’t
mean airy fairy, delicate flower, diaphanous wings… I
mean the dark type of Fae, the ones that are beautiful but
will happily fuck you up, perhaps ‘real’ mermaids have
rows and rows of savage shark teeth hidden beneath a
wicked smile, who knows!
6/Salvation
Lady Rage are a band of four very distinct identities. Yes
they are all girls, they all play music, and they’re all cool
as fuck, but that’s where obvious similarities end. Lady
Rage take four separate approaches, and come together
with one thing in mind… aBomb’s world saving prediction? Possibly… I feel aBomb would quite like to save
the world however I’m not sure that the rest of the band
wouldn’t just burn it or tell it fuck off though.
With their solid base of old school punk-rock, both US and
UK, alongside some fairly hard to escape Riot Girl comparisons, punk is undeniably their main sound; but defying
categorization is really their thing. March’s single, ‘Because
F You’, evoked the grungier sounds of ‘Babes in Toyland’
and ‘Hole’, and at points throughout their live set you can
see elements of pop punk energy, a modern metal edge
(with definite Al Jourgensen vibes), grungy sleaze, flickers
of Brit-Rock like the ‘Manic Street Preachers’ and ‘3 Colours Red’, and a bit of on stage channeling of the likes of
Iggy Pop. Siren flits between gesticulating, sitting hunched
over on the edge of the stage, and throwing herself down
on it; while drummer Dee Chi springs to life, hair flying
about as she becomes the opposite of her relatively quiet
and still off stage presence. Dee Chi is rhythm, bass being
her first instrument but switching to drums when needed.
Emilala is relatively new to the bass, everyone else having
previously been in different bands before, and admits she
is still, in a way, refining her personal sound. She maybe
responsible for most of the metal, particularly any more
gothic metal, overtones you may pick up on; mentioning
‘Rammstein’ and ‘Within Temptation’ as influences. Viewing aBomb’s heightened energy levels on stage, makes me
think there really could be a scintilla of truth in one of her
crazy origin stories, such as the one about being bitten by
a radioactive guitar at a ‘Spice Girls’ show, she effortlessly
channels the crowd’s energy, wields the guitar relentlessly
and even joins Siren on the floor in the right moments.
ception and lead to division. Listen to the previously released single ‘Social Circus’ (“it’s about the net and shit”)
he Spice Girls were never really the feminists they to hear Siren Sycho growling; “…. edit your life to look
were marketed as, but they did achieve some baby like you have one”. Perhaps drummer, Dee Chi Manic,
steps forward. Lady Rage does actually rage about channels her anger on the drum kit because she comes
what matters - that what we do with our bodies should be across as the calmest member when off stage, but misconentirely up to us. That aside, for a band with Rage in their ceptions still concern her; even if it’s just people assumname, they are surprisingly restrained or at least that’s ing a woman is angry if she is not actively jumping for
how they appear. They relay a heightened awareness of joy, or if she listens to heavier music…. or if her band has
online perception. Emilala worries about social media’s the word ‘Rage’ in it. ‘Lady Rage’ aren’t just angry, they
effects on young people and how they see themselves, are the new punk rock super(anti)-hero team, channeling
aBomb’s mythical origin tales are essentially based on fa- their anger for good, by bringing us the power of punk
miliar folklore that stems from a fear of things that are rock and really if you’re a woman and you’re not angry,
‘Other’; mirroring modern fears that stem from misper- you’re probably just not paying attention.
T
