Grrrr! – Girl Monstar (Vicious Kitten)
The groove is the thing on “Grrrr!!” - and so it should be on an album with a name approximating one of the many Best Of collections by the Stones. Drummer Susan Shaw (nee Sue Wold, of The Wraylettes, The Wet Ones, The Exotics and Plastic Section) and Janene Abbott lay down smooth ‘n’ slinky rhythms, and the rest follows.
So to the review but first, the backstory: Girl Monstar existed in Australia a very different time. Home base Melbourne was artier than its rawer cousin Sydney but bands like Girl Monstar were spanning both. The Big Day Out festival juggernaut emerged at the tail end of their run and pushed the underground onto a different level.
Grunge wasn’t the great leveler it was sold as and many acts fell through the major label cracks. The rise of the ubiquitous MP3 reduced original music to a commodity and we’re still paying the price.
Girl Monstar only released one album in their first five-year life, plus a handful of singles, and with the benefit of hindsight, they should have broken internationally. Two of the members did - via solo careers. Vocalist-guitarist Anne McCue is a successful Nashville songwriter and her fretboard foil Sherry Rich is a nationally-known kids’ music and country artist, back in Australia after a decade in the USA.
The band call themselves “neo-garage” but “Grrrr!” has the feel of a less polished Bangles record with the energy of The Clouds in their early days/ The songs are strong and chockful of melodies and the album’s mid-paced tempos distance it from the garage
The notable exceptions are “Mohawk Wig” and “Rats” where the Monstars shed their pop trappings and get down and dirty. Gotta love a lyric like: “You’re just a dickhead in a plastic wig.”
“Love Song For A Street Kid” is the grower, a shimmering piece of arresting pop.
McCue’s keyboards add a layer of sonic sophistication that suits these songs to a tee. The guitar interplay between her and Rich is choice. Uncluttered arrangements let the pop shine through.
Most of the record was recorded and engineered by Rick Plant (Sherry Rich’s other half) in his Melbourne studio and Anne McCue at her own Flying Machine Studio in Nashville in 2025. Digital single, “Blue Cats with Green Eyes” dates from an earlier session.
One of the best things about Bandcamp is being able to hear before you buy, so don’t hesitate to use the link below. For mine, the picks are opener “Hate Train”, the cool as ice “Soul Position”, the strutting “Control Babe” and the quirky “Blue Cats With Green Eyes”, but your own choices may differ.
A great return that holds up. Get into it and tell us we're wrong.
1/3
