Vertical Scratchers – Daughter of Everything
Few garage/indie records employ the less-is-more principle with quite as much commitment and effectiveness as the debut from this LA duo. John Schmersal (guitar and vocals) and Christian Beaulieu (drums) may both have a background in more technically ambitious outfits (Brainiac and Triclops!, respectively), but that has evidently made them perfectly-placed to deploy simplicity and brevity with maximum effectiveness. The fifteen songs that comprise Daughter of Everything have a runtime of 31 minutes, and never deviate from their caustically melodic template.
Sonically, Schmersal’s percussive, metallic thrashings evoke Thee Oh Sees’ gleefully overdriven noise, and there’s a similar deceptive complexity in the song structures here: simultaneously familiar and skewed, and twisting the clichés of the genre just enough to make them fresh. With its frenzied mangling of Pavement-style solos together with deft, Kinks-esque twisting chord progressions, Daughter somehow crams more ideas into a half hour than most peers manage over a career.