FEATURES ON WUSSY
Cincinnati Magazine: "The Ballad of Chuck and Lisa" by Jason Cohen, photos by Jonathan Willis (December 09)
Village Voice: "On the Cheerfully Combative Noise Pop of Wussy" by Rob Harvilla (June 09)
Crawdaddy Wussy Review and Show Recap by Dan Weiss (June 09)
WUSSY IS A BAND FROM OHIO
We like noise. Thanks for noticing.
ABOUT WUSSY
From their records I know this great couple band nobody’s heard of to be mordant, obsessive, desperate. But having caught them live in Manhattan last year, I also know them to be urgent, funny, companionable. To be clear, they’re a two-male, two-female quartet, but only grizzled fat Chuck Cleaver and lissome tattooed Lisa Walker are a couple. What’s worrisome is that if I’m to take their latest songs autobiographically, which is hard to resist after that show, I should say they’re a couple-I-hope, not just because I want them to keep making records but because I liked them together — and because this is as brutal a relationship album as Richard & Linda Thompson’s “Shoot Out the Lights.” It starts with a miserable reunion, gets bleaker, sets the tone for its upful moments with the lively “Happiness Bleeds,” and keeps on bleeding till a spare, funereal closer with the ominous title “Las Vegas.” But there’s also good news. With Walker’s soprano simultaneously reasonable and fraught, Cleaver’s rough tenor spooked by Appalachian Cincinnati, their country-drone guitars and locked-in rhythm section never give up, not even on the slow ones. There’s hurt there always. But no discernible hate. - Robert Christgau, 2009
PRESS FOR NEW ALBUM
NPR's Fresh Air:
Wussy: Strong Work & Not Without Pain
UNCUT (UK): 4 of 5 stars, “Recalling a roll call of adventurous boy/girl-styled indie bands – Yo La Tengo, Handsome Family, X – Wussy draws on plenty of yin/yang sexual and existential tension, a charmingly shambling, rough-hewn sound, and an army of alternately droning and jangling guitars on their sharpest outing yet.”
Rolling Stone: 4 of 5 stars, "Cincinnati foursome make you feel their pain"
SPIN: 8 of 10, "For exposing ordinary life's flaming weirdness, you can't beat the shabby folk rock on this witty third album"
Washington Post:: "Few bands since the Velvet-steeped heyday of the Feelies, Yo La Tengo and R.E.M. have abandoned themselves so completely to the ebbing, flowing currents of keening, droning guitars."
wussymusic.com for more info.