Multi-instrumentalist stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse that make up Skating Polly are still only 13 and 18 years old. Yet listening to their third and latest album 'Fuzz Stielacoom' you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re more advanced than their years.
There’s something about a duo that’s significantly rougher and rawer than a full band. It could be to do with the need to be heard amongst the sea of rock groups at least double the capacity or maybe just a natural result of making more out of less. Luckily, Skating Polly have a punk brutishness that bodes well with their music. They make themselves extremely hard not to listen to, thrashing their way to the top of the punk rock revivalist crop.
Opening track ‘Alabama Movies’ is a gritty ride through 70s punk, that could just as easily be a Death From Above track, with its screeching vocal of ‘Smoke I’m the water, don’t tell your doctor!’ The duo echo various other twosome contemporaries, managing to shirk off any accusations of being a kiddy band for kids. If the lyrical and songwriting maturity isn’t enough to convince you otherwise, listen to the breathy sniffs at the end of ‘Ugly’ and any sign of teen innocence is quickly discarded.
Joan Jett’s femme rock revolution is inked into the core of the girls' sound, which is an obvious but appropriate comparison to draw upon. But to restrict the girls to mainly female comparisons of the Riot grrrl tag would be unfair, as they also manage to capture the best of male headed rock and grunge, ‘Dead Friends’’ simple Pixie-esque bassline and hair-flinging chorus being a good example.
At times, the girls lift out of the scrappiness and mould something even more interesting. The folky, freewheeling ‘Blunderland’ shows the bands other side, with a bluesy vocal and stripped back strumming guitar. When the shouty teen mask slips, they reveal their musical diversity - Closer, ‘A Little Late’ is heartfelt and emotive in the way that their other tracks aren’t and is just another reason why Skating Polly are definitely worth a listen.
Words: Nad Khan
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