If you like your punk dripping with irony, or your art rock delivered with sarcasm, spit and swagger, then Noh Mercy‘s 2012 self-titled album is for you. The band–two chicks named Esmerelda and Tony Hotel–started making music with “no boys on guitars” during the days when any asshole with an attitude and an amplifier could get an audience. But they’re so much more than that.
The band predated the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lydia Lunch, the Runaways, and all the black-haired, riot grrrls who got popular singing a more produced version of this kind of grungy, garage punk. You could call them trailblazers, but that’s a hard moniker to justify when so few folks have heard of them. They don’t even have a wikipedia entry.
And it’s a shame, because their cover of The Beatles’ “Girl” has to be heard to be believed.
This reissue gets my highest recommendation.
