The Courettes - Here Are The Courettes (2015)

Some scribe who imagined themselves clever described Danish duo the Courettes as "the White Stripes in reverse," presumably because they're a two-piece garage punk band with a woman on guitar and vocals and a man behind the drums. The problem with this description is the Courettes don't sound much at all like the White Stripes. It's clear frontwoman Flavia Couri and her drummer and spouse Martin Couri worship at the altar of the Sonics, with a bit of the Cramps added for seasoning, and they wail hard on their 2015 debut album Here Are the Courettes. This is raw, elemental rock & roll with a soulful undertow and some girl group swagger in Flavia's vocals, and it doesn't seem like they tried to figure out how to do this without a bass player so much as sounding full enough that they didn't see the need. Flavia plays guitar just as well as she sings, and she sings with passion and force to spare, and Martin is a rock-solid drummer with swing and muscle who delivers full-bodied howling when he deigns to step up to the microphone. As far as songwriting goes, the Courettes aren't rewriting the accepted rules of garage punk. However, they do come up with tunes that mesh perfectly with their style and attack the garage tropes with a joyous stomp and just enough tunefulness to make these songs fly instead of just running in place. Sprinting through eight songs in 20 minutes, Here Are the Courettes doesn't last long enough to run out of steam, and it's strong enough that anyone who loves gritty, low-tech rock & roll with a mid-'60s flavor should check it out at their earliest convenience. They're not precious, they're wild, and with music like this, that's just what you want. [Damaged Goods reissued Here Are the Courettes on vinyl in 2020, and also brought it out on CD in a special edition that pairs it with 2018's equally satisfying We Are the Courettes, under the title Here We Are the Courettes. In whatever format or configuration, it's a winner.]