Anger, according to Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, is an energy. For Amy Taylor, frontwoman for Melbourne band Amyl and the Sniffers, it’s a renewable source. “It’s my currency,” she told The Guardian. An electric performer, Taylor crackles like a live wire with too much current running through it.
A friend of mine once compared Amy Taylor to Wendy James. He’s wrong. I’m a big fan of Wendy James, I used to own all of her band’s, Transvision Vamp, albums. I still have TV’s Pop Art t-shirt till today. Taylor and James ain’t the same. Taylor is more of a Riot Grrrl, while James is pretty much a sex-bomb bubblegum-punky lady.
Taylor is reminiscent of the late Wendy O. Williams (and Peaches, too), but less shock-rock, yet not overtly sexual. She’ll show you her body, but only on her own contradictory terms, and with a solid Bratmobile’s Riot Grrrl rawness. I’d say Taylor is more like L7’s Donita Sparks-esque attitude: in 1992 she threw her used tampon into the crowd during Reading Festival, also pulled down her jeans and pants on late night British youth TV show, The Word.
The Guardian said that their latest album, Comfort to Me, is “Sniffers at their peak musically. They’re rhythm and boogie machine. Taylor’s voice is defiantly flat, yet more powerfulâlike a poetry slammer fronting the Cosmic Psychos, the Sniffers’ spiritual forebears.”
Pitchfork stated, “On their second album, the Sniffers expand into a Colossus-sized version of itself. Everything feels bigger, heavier, and more meaningful; it calls back to a former antagoniser with newfound clarity.”
Can’t wait to see Amyl and the Sniffers tonight, 7.30pm, at Forum Melbourne!
â¢ Read also AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS.
Featured image via NME.