This album came out two decades ago. Here’s what I had to say about it back then (with some minor editing):
Jet-black Bettie Page bangs. More tattoos than Nikki Sixx. Makeup applied by trowel. Go-go-girl goth-punk duds. Fishnet stockings and garters with Doc Martens. Physically, it’s easy to mistake former Tura Satana vocalist Tairrie B. for a Bif Naked impersonator (which could be why the cover art of her album was altered in Canada).
The difference between the two is more readily apparent once you delve into the grooves of band My Ruin’s her debut effort Speak & Destroy. Instead of the Bifster’s boisterous alterna-punk, Tairrie’s goth-metal is nearly as dark and impenetrable as her eyeliner. As the guitars grind and the industrial rhythms churn and smash, the divine Ms. B unleashes her most impressive voice, which careens from a guttural, Courtney-like growl to a primal banshee-shriek as she picks the scabs of her psyche on scary-chick numbers like Blasphemous Girl, Horrible Pain and Sick With It. “I strike terror among men,” she says. Like we needed to be told.
