Oh joy

Image: Gregory James Walsh

Joy - Silver Daggers

There's as much rage and despair -- those other hazardous spills that slop their neat plastic buckets all over the waxed floor of your tidy mental domicile -- as joy in this song. The singer's a riot grrl fronting the Contortions, all involuntary yelp and afflicted flail. It's like she's trying to bore her body through a thicket of biting green flies, but their sharp sting delivers a narcotic serum so blissful, she can't decide whether it's pain or pleasure, whether she really wants to flee or instead stand still, stretch out her arms, lift her chin, expose her naked neck and declare, "bite me, bugs! Go ahead, feast!" (I'd say both -- check the woo hoo! at 0:33 followed by a sounds-like-swipe from Psycho at 0:49.)

From New High & Ord (Load Records). Silver Daggers' Myspace.