Guilty Party, The – Five songs

The Guilty Party are a female-fronted rock band from San Fransisco. This mcd, appropriately called “Five songs”, makes a good impression on me. The music is intense and dynamic, with a moody postpunk sound. The rather low, nonchalant sensual vocals of singer Angelica Maze make me think somewhat of PJ Harvey. The first song, ‘View from a closet’, is rather claustrophic and builds up a lot of tension, but does not have a real climax. ‘Hit you’ starts off in a brooding batcave manner, but has a great energetic acceleration which rocks heavily. ‘Ten minutes’ has a nice pumping rhythm section, very suited to listen on-the-road, but mind your speed, especially as the song gets heavier. Then it’s time to relax a little with ‘Incandescent’, a slower atmospheric dreampop-like track. Finally ‘Lapse’ is a nice dark indie rock track, which sounds familiar, without becoming clear of which it reminds me.
An EP with twenty minutes of convincing music. I think The Guilty Party would be a great band to see live, according to their website they already have quite some experience on stage.