According to their biog, Oxford based Ivy’s Itch are currently tucked away in the studio working on their debut album, so this two track E.P. acts as a bit of a teaser for things to come from this four-piece, and gives us a bit of an insight into what they are all about.
This CD comes in a cover that has the battered appearance of a notebook that’s been defaced by a bored teenage girl; the track names are hand written as random scribbles across floral doodles with bugs crawling across the page. The scrawlings are perhaps a further extension of the artistic talents of front-woman, Eliza Gregory, whose angst-ridden vocals oscillate from gravelly spoken passages to progressively noisy moments as she screams her lungs out in reaction to her further-provoked wrath. There are moments where she brings her tone down into the deceptively collected style comparable to that of Jack off Jill’s Jessika which shows an air of vulnerability.
An almost industrial style is depicted here especially through the drumming on ‘Dear Sweet Adrenaline’, as a fuzzy bass merges with simplistic guitar lines, which build up into a heavier crunch on the grungy chorus lines to support the pained caterwauling of Eliza at her most scorned.
If you’re after some alternative sounds that are a little bit quirky and with plenty of hormonal rage then Ivy’s Itch is for you.
www.ivys-itch.co.uk/
