ESG get treated by journalists like a group that the right people took under their wing, somewhat condescendingly implying that everybody was charmed by these girls with rudimentary technical skills. The spirit of punk had just as much room for three sisters from the Bronx as it did four pseudo-brothers from Queens, but whereas punk and the genres it spawned represented an ideology tied to a style of music, ESG never seemed particularly rebellious, and consequently came off as kinda naive, making them outsiders to an outsider art form. Maybe the downtown scene found a bit of primitivism in them, which might have helped them placate their own intellectual insecurities.
While those early hits owe their appeal to an irresistible spunk, attempting to achieve similar sassiness 25 years later just sounds sad. It's like watching your mom try to be sexy or something, and just as embarrassing. Tracks like "Purely Physical" and "The Road" sounds like strip music for the saggy set. The music sounds dry and cheap, like they're still playing the same drum machine they've had since the '80s.
Denser numbers like "Everything Goes" and the title track come close to finding a groove, but are hampered by the sense that these ladies can still barely play their instruments. There's something far less charming about middle-aged women playing clumsy beats and simple bass-lines than teenage sisters forming a band with instruments their mom gave them. "Ex" is clearly trying to be a sensitive heartbreak song, but I don't want to hear that kind of trembly teenage stuff when I know these girls have been having relationships for 30 years. Call me sexist or ageist for saying women in their forties can't pull off what people half their age do, but the whole point of getting older is to become more mature, or at the very least more proficient.
It must be frustrating for bands to realize the hot new sound of now is what they were doing way back when. There's a weird irony that young people playing old instruments usually sound better than old people playing new instruments, so you'd better trade your nostalgia for defiance if you want to impress the kids. Then again, if you don't care about keeping your cred and just want to get paid to play music, who cares about broke hipsters.
