KPISS FM's High Vibrations features On-Air Interview with Wife Patrol
On Sunday, September 6, 2020, Wife Patrol was invited to join host Alicia Dell'Aria on the High Vibrations radio show on Brooklyn, NY’s KPISS FM station for an on-air interview. “Let’s Hang Out” and “Valentine Citrus” were also featured on the show.
Check out the show and interview here.
The Alternative Reviews “Too Prickly for This World”
Read The Alternative’s album review for Wife Patrol’s Too Prickly For This World.
Wife Patrol’s Too Prickly For This World was released on Friday, September 4, 2020, to an impressive press bump. Music blog The Alternative published its review of the album on release day. The original review can be read here and is reprinted below.
Variety style and impactful lyrical meaning are the two key pieces to Too Prickly for This World, and they’ve mastered it with every track. With each listen, it only grows sharper.
Rating: Great
Written by: Amanda Starling
Too Prickly for this World, the debut album from Indianapolis’s Wife Patrol, is as sharp as its name promises. What makes this album shine is its incisiveness and impact, in both sound and messaging.
The three-piece act of Nicole O’Neal, Natasha O’Neill, and Greg O’Neill take on so many twists in sound that the record itself feels relentless. Every chord, every drum pattern, every lyric is so deliberate in tone. Opening on “Why Do I Keep Doing This To Myself” gives way to Wife Patrol’s love of metal and punk, but don’t assume anything about this band at the opening: they’ve got so much variety locked in that they become impossible to pin to any one genre.
Take playful friendship ballad “Let’s Hang Out.” In a time where many of us may have distanced connection, the track is a loving reminder of what it’s like to be pulled out of a rut by a friend. Nicole’s rolling basslines feel like the text message that your best friend is headed over, or the honking of a horn to get your ass outside and get going. Core chorus “I wanna say that you’re the one/Making Purgatory fun/You, you’re not just anyone/Let’s hang out until the sun goes down” just showcases that gorgeous, unforgettable connectivity and solidarity locked into a danceable beat. It’s a reminder of what we have, what we’ve missed, and what we can look forward to in safer times.
The record showcases how dynamic in sound Wife Patrol gets in slower, harmonic tracks like “Valentine Citrus.” The swirling mixed vocals and build-up show just how much this band has melded their collaborative songwriting to reflect their unified messaging. They write together, they sing together, they play together feels like as central to their style as it is their message in the record itself. Everything they say, they say together. The gorgeous theme just repeats in stomping strings-inflected “Starlight Sun.”
Every aspect of this record is thought-provoking, from the rhythmic and symbolic storytelling in “Spyro” to thumping anthems like “Girl Cactus” and “Microphone.” It’s “Absolute” that carries the most weight, in its message of unpacking the trajectory of women growing and challenging the systems they’ve lived in. There’s such an impact here in the lyrical delivery in “Absolute,” but that can be said throughout all of Too Prickly for This World. They’re a band who captures the weight of the world, the push-and-tug toxic relationships, the beauty of a close friendship, and the feelings of being caught in a storm, all in sound.
Variety style and impactful lyrical meaning are the two key pieces to Too Prickly for This World, and they’ve mastered it with every track. With each listen, it only grows sharper.
Too Prickly for This World is now streaming everywhere.
New Noise Magazine Premieres "Girl Cactus" Music Video
On Monday, August 31, Addison Herron-Wheeler of New Noise Magazine premiered the music video for “Girl Cactus”.
“Girl Cactus” is the third single from Wife Patrol’s debut album Too Prickly For This World, to be released on Friday, September 4, 2020.
Anchored by the chorus “You want me around / But you don’t want to be around me,” the song explores difficult-relationship dynamics from romances to shallow attempts at inclusion. The video is the band’s debut music video, filmed outdoors and socially distanced with a crew of one and the band.
The music video was filmed in a socially distanced environment, with the band and one crew member, Clay Lomneth.
"Let's Hang Out" Featured on Birthday Cake For Breakfast
Wife Patrol’s “Let’s Hang Out” featured in the Birthday Cake for Breakfast music blog.
Music blog Birthday Cake For Breakfast featured Wife Patrol’s “Let’s Hang Out” on its September 2020 Listening Post. Along with a strong write up on the track, the song was included in a Spotify playlist with bands such as Sonic Youth, XTC, and more.
Here’s what writer Andy Hughes had to say about “Let’s Hang Out”:
Sleater-Kinney territory permeating through this super-catchy new one from Indianapolis based trio Wife Patrol. ‘Let’s Hang Out‘ is earworm central from their hotly tipped debut album out this month.
She Makes Music Interviews Wife Patrol
Read She Make Music’s interview with Wife Patrol ahead of the debut album release.
Ahead of the release of their debut album, Too Prickly For This World, the members of Wife Patrol provided an interview for UK music blog She Make Music. The interview was originally published on August 27, 2020 and can be read here.
Festival Lingua Franca Interviews Wife Patrol
Watch or listen to Wife Patrol’s interview with Daniel G. Wilson of Festival Lingua Franca, a Toronto, Canada-based music festival highlighting BBI&POC musicians.
Wife Patrol sat down with Daniel G. Wilson, musician and founder of Festival Lingua Franca, a music festival dedicated to showcasing loud rock and underground bands with BBI&POC members in Toronto, Canada. The band talked about the upcoming album, Too Prickly For This World, how it deals with racism and sexism both on and off stage, and lots of references to Canadian TV shows and music.
Note: This interview was recorded during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, which is why the band appears in masks for each other’s safety.