Nominate the House Perry’s sigil in the comments and win absolutely no prize…
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[6.57]
Anthony Easton: The Band Perry, previously known for stentorian-paced junior Gothic melodramas, have updated, sped up, and made truly nasty the Miranda Lambert school of fuck you.
[8]
Jonathan Bogart: That venom-filled “huh!” in the instrumental break alone would be worth a [7], but the Aerosmithy stormer surrounding it is almost as satisfying. Woman scorned trashing her ex’s memory is almost always a great look in modern country, and the Band Perry rise to the occasion; this could stand with the best of Lambert, Wilson, Underwood, and the Dixie Chicks, no question.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Way more mechanized than the Jonas Bros single, down to the harmonica, power chords, and 1-900-DIAL-A-SASS lyrics.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: This is so aggressively perky as a kiss-off that it doesn’t matter that we don’t get the details of why this guy was such a douche — it works just fine with malice instead of menace. That being said, the lyrics are a little clunky, especially the forced and slightly laboured internal rhymes in the verses. I forgive those flaws just based on its overwhelming speed and confidence, and possibly out of huge guilt at underrating Carrie Underwood’s similarly banging “Good Girl”. But it sounds great right now; the instrumental middle could only have been more awesome if played on a synth in some 80s hair metal blow-out, but it’s plenty awesome already. The icing on the cake is that fantastic disgusted grunt near the end.
[8]
Brad Shoup: Sure, the title brings cringes now — Taylor’s currently the only one we’d give the benefit — but in a few years we won’t remember. It’s all kinds of frantic (great!), but the lead-in to the chorus promises a giant ping-ponging melody, and we just get chatter. The band’s hanging on for dear life, dropping a couple stop-time breaks in the chorus, but it’s all about the rhythm guitarist working melodic urgency on the verses. Kimberly is too seasoned to sell the huff, but a teen-er hand would have completely fucked that breathless chorus.
[7]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The all-caps title says it all: spunky, raging, flippant, DONE. The song doesn’t say enough: repetitive, vacant, too polite by half, UNDERDONE.
[4]
Josh Langhoff: Doesn’t look like Kimberly had a hand in writing this one, but the lyrics match her inchoate force-of-nature-isms — “vwhoooo!” and “ughhhh” and whatnot, along with elongated vowels out of the Plant and Tyler toolkits. I mean, whose idea of revenge is burning a bridge, then gathering up the ashes (to hide the evidence?), and then smashing the urn and making another mess? It sounds like too much work. I don’t think she’s thought the whole thing through; but when you’re this mad, you don’t.
[7]