Bambix is a Dutch punk band with a German drummer, a Brazilian following, whose songs are in English. The main songwriting force in the band is, I suppose obviously, the lead singer, Wick Bambix, a platinum blonde who looks very much like modern day Rod Stewart in a trucker cap. Supposedly their gimmick is Wick’s voice, which seems kind of a silly thing to be proud of at first but really does grow on you. She uses it to deliver very sing-chanty performances that kind of remind me of Against Me, though a highly knowledgeable AM fan yanked my scrotum and told me I was nuts for this opinion.
The band is very…like something. It is vaguely a 90s, pre blink, ska-less underground punk sound, with significant 90s alternative elements, but that’s all kind of a gobbledygook that may not mean much to you. The band maintains a powerful performance energy while maintaining vocals that are actually sung and high quality song writing. This combination of strengths makes the band something of an instant punk gem. They manage that oh-so difficult task of being obviously punk without sounding exactly like every other punk band, and manage to dodge the numerous punk subgenres.
Which is kind of some egg on my face. The reason it took me so long to listen to this album was that I thought they were a Riot Grrl act, and I had such a bad time trying to listen to Bikini Kill that I passed this one over. Bambix is certainly a feminist band, but 2/3 of the members are men and they tend towards pro-woman story telling rather than intellectualist soap-boxing. The lyrics are engaging and interesting and narrative, a feature that I find delightful and which is often ignored by the kids these days.
Check these guys out if you can. Obviously it’s worth listening to their myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/bambix, before laying out any cash, but I would go so far as saying it’s worthy ordering a CD from Amazon. This is definitely one of the gems of my PREX runs.
They have something here, I think. Definite punk, but also definitely playing with talent. This is not to say punk bands don't normally possess talent, it's just in most cases I've found that if they do, it's not readily apparent in their sound. Maybe it's just me, but something as simple as demonstrating real singing puts a band like this over the top of the others. Thanks for bringing them to my attention!
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