Personnel: Jenna Thornhill (vocals, whistling, saxophone, bongos); Jennifer Clavin (vocals, guitar, cowbells, tambourine); Seth Densham (vocals, drums, washboard); Blaque Chris, Jessica Clavin, Mike McHugh (vocals); Michelle Suarez (guitar, organ, tambourine); Kate Hall (drums).
Audio Mixer: Mike McHugh.
Recording information: Distillery, Costa Mesa, CA.
Photographer: Ra£l P‚rez.
It's easy to hear where the self-professed influences of ESG and Reagan Youth collide on WE BE XUXA. Looping basslines and four-to-the-floor percussion cause a clatter with catchy-crusty punk roughness. But Mika Miko part from these influences with a gleeful brattiness, captured in the sneering-cum-cooing female vocals and goofy song titles like "Turkey Sandwich." The group deserves equal billing in both the L.A. noise-gaze Smell scene (alongside bands like Abe Vigoda) and the neo-garage movement helmed by Black Lips and Times New Viking. XUXA has something in equal measure for adolescent scenesters looking for pogo-pit inciters and aging second-and-third generation punkers seeking a throwback to the days of Black Flag and Bikini Kill.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.73) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "In blasts like 'Wild Bore,' they mix up giddy chants, incomprehensible screams and twisted guitar....They pay their respects to L.A. punk history by covering the Urinals' 'Sex'..."
Pitchfork (Website) - "WE BE XUXA can be plenty of fun. Its best tracks, such as shouty opener 'Blues Not Speed', rumble past at a violent clip with just enough time for the band to do its damage and then peel out in the getaway car."
