Generation No, Left-Handed Scissors

Before the turn of the 21st Century, in what I like to refer to as the Happy-Go-Lucky Nineties (at least for music), there were different times in music. Sarah McLachlan started a female gathering called Lilith Fair, which if I remember correctly was just a way to convince every single woman in the world that they had a song inside of them to share and should pick up an acoustic guitar and do just that.

Whether or not that is true remains to be seen, but I’m glad that in the time that has since passed there have been less and less female singer/songwriters out there (and singer/songwriters in general, for that matter), because it actually makes the sound of Generation No somewhat refreshing.

It’s been a good number of years — probably close to ten — since I fell in love with the music of Rachael Jacobs, so it seems about time for me to be exposed to another female voice with an acoustic guitar that I could fall in love with.

I actually heard the Dallas band’s previous album, I Am an Astronaut, prior to hearing Left-Handed Scissors, but not by much. I did like I Am an Astronaut to an extent, but Left-Handed Scissors is just miles ahead of that. Gone is the rough, demo sound of the songs, as you’re left struggling to hear them like some great rarity of your favorite band you can barely make out but listen to anyway, because it’s better than nothing.

The vocals still remind me of Alanis Morissette at times, though I think the singer is really coming into her own sound. The first song has the vocals very prominent, and there is some sort of accompanying music, but it sounds like it’s being played really quietly on a ghetto blaster behind her singing.

The second song begins the acoustic guitar + vocals trend. There are some pretty good lines in here, despite the singing just being far beyond what you would expect. The singing is just hypnotizing.

The chorus of “Die in Texas” — a song about not wanting to die in Texas — has the two lines “Sometimes I pretend that I’m German / Sometimes I pretend that I’m Ethel Merman.” When we get into “New Hungarian Quarterly,” we get some Casio keyboard sounds accompanying the vocals, and I dare you not to hear the song “Thank You” in there (going back to my earlier Morissette comparison).

In the second song — “Die in Texas” — we have lines reflecting low self-esteem, such as, “I’m a dime a dozen but at least I’m aware of it,” and, “I’ve never written anything that didn’t totally suck.” Despite some willingness to agree with these statements (I mean, the fourth song does start and carry on for quite some time with just a general racket of noise, like people slamming doors and cupboards), I have to disagree, but can understand where she is coming from completely. We are our own worst critics. But as someone who is not a part of this band (though I’m not at all convinced yet that it is more than one person), this could quite possibly be the female equivalent of Daniel Johnston.