After working with
the Reigning Sound
's
Greg Cartwright
on their previous album (
Do You Want Power
) and stretching the boundaries of their well-established garage punk sound a bit,
the Ettes
headed back to
Liam Watson
's Toe Rag Studio to crank out the more
Ettes
-y sounding
Wicked Will
. This time out there are precious few ballads or moments of introspection, no psych-y interludes, not much subtlety, and lots of raw and ready energy. Once they get past the seething acoustic ballad ¿Teeth,¿ which opens the album,
Coco
,
Jem
, and
Poni
sound like they are on a mission of destruction. Even with
Watson
dumping a bucket of old-time reverb over their heads, they rage and pound through the songs with a tight, sparse abandon and a barely controlled fury. As with the other albums
produced, the monstrous and distorted bass and drums give the songs all kinds of power, while
's guitar adds razor-sharp toughness and her voice soars over the top alternately pleading with honey or spitting with fire. The songs range from slow-burning rockers like "You Never Say" and "The Pendulum" to fast and furious rockers like "Excuse" and "Don't Bring Me Down," all with hooky choruses and enough energy to power a small town. Throw in a rollicking cover of the
Lee Hazlewood
-penned "My Baby Cried All Night Long" and the busted-up sounding lament "The Worst There Is," which closes the album on a down note, and you have a record that stands with their best work and makes for a truly invigorating listen. If the band were merely backtracking from the more arranged and fleshed-out sound
Cartwright
gave them, this record could be seen as a retreat. Instead, it sounds like they needed to go back to
to root out demons and get back to basics. ~ Tim Sendra