Straight outta New Brunswick, New Jersey come the Urchins, a clever guitar-based quartet fronted by vocal charmer Karen Bradbury. Yummy serves up smart lyrics with a good sense of humor, catchy tunes, coherence, and a Partridge Family cover. In short, Yummy is very good, and Urchins have performed with Frente! to boot.
Bradbury's voice and lyrics carry the band beyond the ordinary. Vocally reminiscent of Echobelly, the Motels, early Debbie Harry, or Madder Rose, she has a tendency to belt out songs, such as "The Enabler", with a passion that brings Lone Justice/Maria McKee or even early Linda Ronstadt to mind.
On "I'd Like to See You," Bradbury goes through a series of images of her unfaithful lover being boiled in oil, thrown off a 50 story building, and subjected to other such niceties. She explains, "You promised me the sun, then you dicked me over to nail another one." An acoustic version of this song closes Yummy and showcases the vengeful but comically hyperbolic lyrics. She manages to include profanity in several songs without coming across as seeking hip semantic naturalism; that is, such forays sound genuinely natural and are not intrusive.
Musically, the Urchins remain very straightforward, but don't suffer from their rock traditionalism. Passages drenched in reverb recall Echo and the Bunnymen, Chris Isaak, or Mazzy Star. The overall impression might be described as a tastefully unproduced version of the Divinyls or Pretenders: quite mainstream without the indie extremities of Th' Faith Healers or PJ Harvey, without the molasses-inflected psychedelia of Mazzy Star. Sleeper is a particularly good reference point, with the fiery (but not whining and self- indulgent) lyrics distinguishing the Urchins from most other contemporary bands.
