The Life of the Party

She Rides makes metal fun

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At the far end of subtle lies She Rides, a band comprising five of your younger brothers whose Adderall-fueled redefinition of Party Metal, a sadly overlooked genre, has found the band weaving a delicate course between self-referential, hyperbolic promotion and sheer hedonism. If the opening salvo of the band’s mission statement doesn’t make its intent known through sheer liberal use of grammar – “What says rock and roll that hasn’t already been said before.” (Question mark implied, I guess) – then what, I implore you, does?

She Rides is simply an awesome club band: full throttle, straight up boozing rock n’ roll whose disregard for taste or pretension is a refreshing slap on the ass for a widely complacent music scene whose tastes in heavy music seem to too often swerve towards overly brainy nerd metal or tired hardcore.

Part of the secret to their success is George Radford’s razor-sharp songwriting – short, intense bursts of jagged riffs that plunge themselves directly into the bloodstream without any indulgent meandering or long winded intros, outros or midtros, and large-scale thunderous progressions from the “Hot For Teacher” graduate degree program of hard rock pyrotechnics. At their core these are pop songs really - albeit pop songs with titles like the charming “Party in the Piss Kitchen” or the absolutely perfect “Woah Dude!”

It’s the rest of the group, however, that really brings it all to life, especially during live performances, perhaps the environment to which their music is best suited. Singer Dan Brown makes absolutely no attempt to control the sheer insanity of his live presence. With little regard for technique or timing, Brown throws himself headfirst into the concrete columns of every tune, never in one place for more than a second, gregarious sometimes to the point of intolerability. He’s gushingly thankful for each and every second he gets to front this unstoppable live force and completely unwavering in his desire to put on The Show – not simply a show, or just another She Rides show, but the best show you’ve ever seen or he’ll buy you your next ‘Gansett. (And don’t worry, they have plenty; the company has been sponsoring the band for over a year now.)

She Rides spent most of last year releasing and touring in support of their EP, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride on the Rusty Knuckles label, and they have no plans to rest. They should have the next record out by early 2012 just in time for yet another US tour and another stop at South By Southwest, their fourth invite.

providence, music, local music, rock, she rides

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