THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With a squall of guitar and a crash of drums, Chicago noisemakers Babe Report finally release their debut album — the rough-and-ready Did You Get Better. Arriving two years after their exhilarating debut EP, and featuring 10 new songs that speed by in under half an hour, it’s an immediate and breathless arrival.
Opening track Turtle Of Reaper arrives in a flurry of noise and energy. Presented as an indictment of the fear-mongering in click-bait media, it’s a cacophonous two-minutes of scorched vocals and frenetic drums, the chorus a call back to 12/31/99, when all the news told people to turn off their computers before Y2K hit.
Universal offers something somewhat more refined, with occasional moments of restraint amid the commotion that arrives in a hardy whack of heavy riffs. “This one is all about climbing up onto your neighbor’s back to succeed,” the band explain. “Most aspects of life are not a zero-sum game, but when they are, it feels ethically wrong to win.”
Elsewhere, Allergy 2000 is the album’s weighty centrepoint, characterized by its soaring guitar lead line and stifled, murky vocals what might have started out as an experiment in writing a Yo La Tengo song soon comes into its own, with a rabid tempo shift that feels indicative of the album’s fervent nature, never allowing the listener to rest on their laurels.
However it finds you or you find it, Did You Get Better finds a way to take the reins, ploughing headfirst into its journey and rarely looking back for approval, to even worry if anyone else is joining for the ride.”
