Being the opener of last day of Amnesty 2019 >>> being the opener for some bill of shit dudes. Fact.
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[7.43]
Leela Grace: I get tired of empathizing. This year lasted a thousand disappointments; sadness gets old. The clean fire of rage is a functional replacement. We are all screaming into the void of time, here. It is going to carry us away from all our pasts.
[9]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: The band provides a tight, unwavering foundation with which Georgia Maq can take center stage and deliver a series of biting statements about dumb men, particularly those in the music industry. What’s important to note, though, is how nothing she says is a revelation; every line is based on actual quotes she’s heard, and since the song’s release, others in the industry have shared how they’ve had similar experiences. Ultimately, sexism is so ubiquitous — often in ways that men are unable or unwilling to recognize — that it manifests in ways that feel banal. That’s what makes “The Opener” so potent: the plainness of the instrumentation represents this reality, and Maq’s fierce vocalizing finds her pushing back against all the bullshit. Her passion is magnetic, and the song is addicting for that reason alone.
[8]
Juan F. Carruyo: Prominent bass, very opaque guitars and a singer that reminds me of Jim Adkins anchor this somewhat underwhelming emo tune that resorts to screaming instead of coming up with captivating melodies.
[2]
Alfred Soto: I love this rhythm guitar sound and the shouted declaration of principles, forsaking choruses for rage. “Same old shit,” Tracey Thorn said with a shake of her head earlier in this godforsaken year. U.S. Girls had to keep changing form to stay sane.
[7]
Rebecca A. Gowns: This brings me back to my college radio days, c. 2006-2010, both in sound and subject matter. I’m a married hermit now, so I isolate myself away from these issues that I used to deal with all the time. I don’t miss these problems, but I do miss being in direct contact with this kind of music. I miss the righteous anger, the snarl that pops out at the end of phrases. And listening to this a few times over, I have to admit that I miss this sound. In the past few years, I haven’t gone out of my way to listen to indie rock, settling back into the childhood comforts of the local classical and jazz stations. This song jogs my memory, bringing to the surface the pleasant times from my early 20s, a time that’s mostly buried in anxiety and trauma. Reminds me how nice it can be to listen to someone half-screaming over electric guitars. How nice? How cathartic.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: I have such a conflict in me about whether I like to hear the broad Australian accent I grew up surrounded by in music, but the vowels are deployed like weapons against an all-too-familiar enemy, and I can get behind it. The stories of mansplainers and tech guys criticising her band’s bass sound are worthy targets for Georgia Maq’s anger, and she shows it both when she gets loud and when she doesn’t. Taking words and situations used to cut their band down to size and turning them into armour in the form of a song of defiance can’t be easy, but Camp Cope emerge from “The Opener” strong and triumphant.
[8]
Jonathan Bradley: A parched rhythm guitar and high bass lock together, tracing a circle. It sounds weary from the get-go: an effort to do the same thing again and again and not get anywhere new. It’s dealing with obvious bullshit like “tell me you never wanna see me again, and then keep showing up at my house.” Georgia Maq has the Australian male voice down. “Nah, hey, come on girls; we’re only thinking about you,” she avers, parodying its laconic selfishness and the poison soaking through it. “The Opener” begins with one man who, with his appetites and self-regard and gaslighting and manicured progressivism, takes and takes and takes. And with him are more men who take and take — the men who book shows and the men who make excuses and the men who are generous with their opinions and parsimonious with their praise. Maq sings with arc-weld intensity, scorching truths upon the track: Camp Cope is claiming their success, booking that bigger venue, taking the headlining slot, choosing their own frequencies to miss. The amount of dead weight the song piles on makes the triumph glow hotter: “See how far we’ve come not listening to you,” Maq wails, an ascension that incinerates all that precedes it. Camp Cope is missing nothing. Show ’em, Kelly.
[10]