“It’s fun, it’s queer and your straight friends will like it too because, ultimately, it’s about being less alone.
Everyone can relate to that. And the world genuinely feels like a brighter place with PWR BTTM in it.” PWR BTTM smoothed the rough edges of their debut EP and then turned out a polished and powerful debut album, “Ugly Cherries”, that’s as heavy on the riffs as it is on the message. Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce switch off instruments and vocals on practically every song, and the whole project has a similarly communal, anything-goes feel. That energy transfers over to their high-energy live performances and, with such a strong start under their belts, they could even end up ushering in a whole new generation of queer punks
“My girl gets scared/Can’t take him anywhere” announces Ben Hopkins on the title track of their band’s debut, with a riff echoing “Wild Thing” and shredding that imagines Eddie Van Halen after six Mai Tais. Ugly Cherries is rent-party punk in glitter and kimonos that kicks against various tyrannies – gendered pronouns, queer-bashing, broken hearts, coming-of-age – in songs that are goofy, sweet, pained, sloppy and exhilarating. And if Hopkins and Liv Bruce’s genderqueer heroics feel precisely of their moment, they also advance a radical history of glam-rock and drag, with a reminder that horniness, the need for self-actualization and the injustice of normalcy have fueled rock & roll from the days of Little Richard
The Fat Angel Sings 