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The Squid's Ear presents reviews about releases sold at Squidco.com written by independent writers. 
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Beehive and the Barracudas play 13 songs in 37 minutes with stuttered rhythms and strangely provocative lyrics tossed between guitarist Dirty and Traci, whose plastic organ gives them a nice prepunk feel, little bitter pop songs with occasional smudges of no wave. Usually they sound like Richard Hell and the Voidoids, but occasionally more like James Chance or early Joe Jackson. All of which points to more smirk than sneer and more sex than politics, but that's OK. It's a big world. And they get props for giving props. There's more info about other bands in the liner notes than about their own selves.
It's 'cause I'm old that I can't understand what CVA are singing about. I couldn't understand those California hardcore bands when I was a kid, either. I made out the following lyrics: "fuck you," "enemies," "everything went wrong," "we're still here/we still carry the torch," "follow directions and your life's complete/it's not as hard as you thought it would be" and "quick fix of trashy bullshit." We didn't get a cover or a press release or a lyric sheet or jack shit with the disc (I thought their name was "Eva" till I popped it into ITunes). So, CVA play short and fast (17 songs in 19 minutes), but if they did the same thing a little slower and a lot longer they'd be death metal. They got the rhythm guitar and the cookie-monster vocals down and they sound self-righteous as hell, but I bet they couldn't play the solos.
Hella is Sister Ray's little sister who's into speed insteada smack. Tinging organ lines (really processed guitar, though) hover over the din, with anxious drums trying to mold the sludge into rock'n'roll. The tension between them is excitingly palpable. On the final track, rock wins out when a vocalist joins the duo for a strangely frantic bit of psychedelic garage rock.
The Husbands play pure garage rock. Since they're all female, a lesser man would conclude that their older brothers played the Nuggets comps for them, but I think they would have discovered The Seeds even if they were only children. Simple riffs, straight-ahead rhythm guitar, no bass (nice trebly sound) and flourish-free drumming. Party in the basement, but don't disrespect. They wrote 8 of the 14 songs (that clock in at 26 minutes) and cover Carole King and Bo Diddley. I'd call 'em endearingly forgettable, but I'm scared of pissing them off.
Friends Forever are pretty much ridiculous. They dedicate their disc to the Denver Broncos and have songs about linebackers, halftime bands, 2-minute warnings and winners. The opening cut is a 70-second salvo, rooting for the carnisaur in it's battle against the unicorn and sounds like Mark and the Mysterians covering Black Sabbath, but most of the sports homages seek to simulate the excitement of bones breaking under shoulder pads, with driving momoriff instrumentation and vocals straight from the huddle. Choice cut: "Charge," where the use of vibes rivals the idiocy of the best Japanese throwaway punk. Twelve songs in 28 minutes.
Sightings make a noise so dense it's almost indecipherable. The joyously juvenile vocals and in-the-red recording levels recall of some of the harsher moments in The Boredom's Super Roots series. They mix it up enough over eight tracks and 33 minutes to keep it interesting and mess it up enough to keep it ugly.
These Arms are Snakes aren't really punk, and who knows, maybe none of these bands are. No one really told us they were, and we don't have Bloody Dick here to set us straight at exasperating length. They're more a product of that bland demilitarized zone known as alt rock that has sadly come to represent so much of what punk used to be. It's a shame they fell last on the alphabetical list, because I was just starting to feel some hope for the future.
