The double A-side single release of Black Hole / Subway Jane features new tracks from Cherry Pickles and is their first release since the 2019 album Cherry Pickles Will Harden Your Nipples (which I reviewed for Joyzine last year).
Cherry Pickles are Brazilian born Priscila B (vocals and guitar) and Mimi B (drums) – there may be only two people in the band but the joyous fuzzed-up cacophony they produce feels like the best party you’ve ever been to: it’s 5am and you’re go-go dancing on a roof watching the sunrise.
Their sweet alchemy of guitar and drums has never been better than on these two tracks. ‘Black Hole’ is a nitrous-burn of riff and rhythm with an addictive lead line and descending chords which compete with the Motown-boom of floor tom and snare. This bedrock backing is topped by a semi-frantic scream-sung vocal that contains the great line “I don’t know what to say, but I’ll say it anyway. I don’t know what to do, but I’ll do it!” (could this be a nod to the first line in A-Ha’s mega-hit ‘Take On Me’?). ‘Subway Jane’ is a gritty mooch of a song that would be saccharine-sweet in the hands of lesser mortals but gets a bloody nose from the ‘Pickles. It’s also part of a niche group of songs that make reference to sausage rolls in their lyrics.
Cherry Pickles have been filtered through a fuzz pedal that’s been buried in gravel held in a rusty tank of razor blades soaked in lemons…on fire, and I stand by what I said about them when I reviewed their album; that they are “…the soundtrack to a John Waters film where the pool party scene features Mink Stole and Divine sipping exotic cocktails and talking to David Lynch and Bruce Campbell while Dennis Hopper floats on an inflatable Cadillac inhaling oxygen and Elvira hides in the shade”. My advice is to get your Wi-Fi tuned into their Lo-Fi ASAP.
You can buy the digital release and/or grab a limited number of vinyl copies on the Cherry Pickles Bandcamp page
Review by Paul F Cook
facebook.com/cherrypicklesband