On New Year's Eve of 2024, I wrote, "If we finally get a Taxi Girls full-length next year, it may very well be my album of the year for 2025!" Well, I was a year off in my estimation, but my prediction is surely looking spot-on. In what has been the best first six months of a year for new music in recent memory, Taxi Girls have my absolute favorite release of the half-year with their fantastic debut long player
Static (out today on Stomp Records in North America and the great Wild Honey Records in Europe).
Jamie Radu, Vera Bozickovic, Lynn Poulin, and Gabrielle Noël Bégin were smart to take their time and make their debut album something special. As good as the debut EP Coming Up Roses and follow-up single "Rainy" were, Static blows those releases away. It's that rarest of things: an album that carries the appeal and influence of late '70s/early '80s punk rock yet sounds genuinely current in the contemporary punk/garage/rock 'n' roll universe. Influences run the gamut from classic punk and new wave to power pop to '90s feminist punk and alternative rock to modern-day garage rock. Yet Taxi Girls aren't trying to be anyone but themselves. Jamie Radu, in fact, described the album to me as "us on a plate." And that's what I love about this record. The influences are all over the place, but these songs are uniquely and undeniably Taxi Girls. These four women are not just extraordinarily talented; they also have a chemistry and kinship with each other that is immediately palpable. You're getting different musical influences from everyone in the band, and it all coalesces into something that only these four individuals working together could have created. I've never heard a record that sounds quite like this.
Whichever corner of the punk and punk-adjacent underground you gravitate to — whether that's old-style punk, power pop and pop-punk, garage rock, or the more rock 'n' roll side of punk — you are sure to find much to love about Static. It's full of superb songwriting with killer hooks. It rocks hard. It's got punk rock attitude all day long. The lyrics are meaningful and relatable. The production is incredible. And Vera and Jamie, as co-lead singers, have an amazing hot sauce & honey dynamic going on. Their styles are contrasting yet also beautifully complementary. Both individually and in harmony, they make a formidable tandem. I can't think of many bands with two lead singers/songwriters where I don't like one a little (or a lot) more than the other. But with these two, it's a dead heat. Add in a lead guitarist who totally shreds and one of the best drummers in punk rock, and you've got yourself a band that ought to be huge.
Taxi Girls certainly chose well with the three singles it has released off the album. But I'm hard-pressed to find any song on here that wouldn't have been a fine choice for a single. The sequencing of this record is flawless. It comes roaring out of the gates with a great mix of powerhouse rockers ("Say It!" and "Red Flag Crush") and energetic, super-catchy punk tunes ("Try Harder" and "Auto-Hysterics") before taking a surprising turn with the sweet, sentimental power pop of "So Quaint" and the delightful, effortlessly cool new wave throwback "Midnight Mixtape." And from there, the ride remains a great time but never gets predictable. By the time I got through the four-song run which includes the furious punk scorcher "Kill Your Darlings," the poppy punk earworm "Secret Handshake," the punk rock 'n' roll fireball "It Makes Me Think," and the genius New Order/Go-Go's mashup "Highs//Lows," I started to wonder if this band has secretly been together for 15 years and is just compiling greatest hits! And one thing that is always a deal-clincher for me is when an album offers an extraordinary pair of bookends. I always love an album that starts off with a song that makes you want to listen to the whole record and closes with a song that makes you want to immediately play it again. "Say It!" opens the record with a proverbial bang, and album closer "Other Heart" is this simple, unassuming little ballad that just tears your heart out. It's beautiful, tender, and instantly memorable — a perfect punctuation mark on the best album I've heard in a long, long time.
So is Static everything I thought it would be? Yes and then some! I have been known to sometimes overstate things a little bit (ha ha). But it's not hyperbole to suggest that this album puts Taxi Girls right in the thick of the "best band out there" conversation. For people my age, this is one of those records that reaffirms that it's a healthy thing to keep up with new bands and not assume that music stopped being good 30 years ago. If you have young daughters, granddaughters, nieces, etc., this is the kind of album that could very well inspire them to start their own bands and grow up to be total bad-asses like Jamie, Vera, Lynn, and Gabrielle. Honestly, I have a hard time imagining any regular reader of this blog not being into this record. It's just so freaking good! I have a different favorite song every day. You hear a record like this, and you believe in rock 'n' roll again. You'll want a tattoo —or at least a t-shirt! When I see the critical and fan acclaim Taxi Girls are receiving, it makes me happy because it shows that even in these times when algorithms are king, talent and hard work still matter in music. There are still some huge albums due out later this year, but it's going to take something truly out of this world to top Static.
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