Wussy
Issue #26
Funeral Dress (Shake It)
By Tiffany Lee Brown
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 3:49pm
Sincere pop melodies, indie rock fuzz, and alt-country whining meld together in the sweet sounds of Wussy. Singer-songwriter Lisa Walker (née Miller) and Ass Ponys vocalist-guitarist Chuck Cleaver gallop their way through bouncy love tunes, plaintive folky ballads, and quirky rock bits with drummer Dawn Burman and multi-instrumentalist Mark Messerly. While its sound isn’t shockingly new or original, Funeral Dress makes you wanna soar, turn up the volume, and sing along.
What may shock you, though, is just how much Lisa Walker occasionally sounds like Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. Once you get past the comparison, Walker’s voice is pretty but burred with a tasty edge of desperation and intensity. Her simple, idiosyncratic lyrics work similar magic on songs like “Crooked.” When she and Cleaver sing together, dissonances keep things interesting, especially in the frustration of “Bought It Again” and the longing of the disc’s closing anthem, “Don’t Leave Just Now.”
Much of Funeral Dress glows with energy and earnestness, especially in the irresistible “Yellow Cotton Dress,” which can sound a bit self-congratulatory and deliberate. An infusion of folky melancholia and occasional nuggets of basement-recording-style crunchiness keep the record from becoming too precious. Then again, dicey production can also mar the experience. On “Don’t Leave Just Now,” the guitars are so far forward in the mix that you want to jump through the speakers and kick ’em into another room, and the title track is a complete mess that sounds like it was recorded in a small bathroom, possibly so it would sound more authentic. But, problems aside, Funeral Dress is an inspiring and catchy romp.
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