Subrosa
Strega
I Hate Records; 2008
Let’s go ahead and get the obligatory supposedly shocking factoid out of the way. Subrosa is a four-piece doom-and-gloom style metal band that just so happens to be all female in composition. That’s right, folks – in case you weren’t sure, from Aretha, Janis, and Debbie to Liz, Sleater-Kinney, & even Kittie, women have long proven that they are more than able to rock and they can do so early, often, and in copious quantities. But what makes Strega, the group’s debut full-length, so impressive is the display of actual mettle of their metal, the substance in their swagger. Featuring a hauntingly, achingly beautiful lead vocal that straddles the line between the stuff of dreams and nightmares, the band possesses a sound replete with thick, fuzz-soaked guitar lines and perpetually pounding rhythms designed to compel even the most stoic amongst us to bang his/her head along with these songs. While there are instances when the music is little more than average stoner rock (“How to Neglect Your Heart” is a good example), the key tracks on Subrosa’s Strega (“Crucible,” the title track, and “Selt-Rule”) display a group of strong, talented women that should have some of their lesser, eyeliner-adorned male counterparts shaking and quaking in their overly clean, corporately sponsored boots.