Grass Widow - Past Time

Grass Widow
Past Time
(2010, Kill Rock Stars)
RIYL = Sleater Kinney, Vivian Girls, meh

At first glance, Grass Widow looks like just another retro-pop girl group in the vein of Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, etc. However, on tape, Grass Widow is a tangled, wiry mess of arty post-punk that melds all the cutesy bandwagon-hopping blah-ness of the afore mentioned bands with something much rougher. If you’re looking for reference points, Sleater Kinney is probably a bit more accurate, but not wholly. I don’t know – comparisons are lame anyway. Grass Widow are a harmonic, multi-voiced, un-harmonic throat gripper of a band. And a worthy one to be chiming out tunes in this landscape of quick fixes and indie one-hit-wonders. Past Time, similar to their debut, grows on you with repeated listens. Like weeds. It chokes you out of your meh-music daze with a taste of what real indie rock ought to be sounding like these days. Really an awesome indie-pop rock record.

-Thistle