Laura Jane Grace
Hole in My Head
POLYVINYL
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a decade since Against Me!’s frontperson Laura Jane Grace came out as trans with the release of her band’s punishing punk manifesto Transgender Dysphoria Blues arriving shortly after—and she hasn’t taken her foot off the pedal since. While Against Me! aided Grace in her transition with the loaded-for-bear blues of 2016’s Shape Shift with Me, the vocalist’s own solo albums such as Bought to Rot (with her band The Devouring Mothers) and Stay Alive offered her a more poetic place to blossom, then nestle, within their subtler shades of melody and arrangement.
Hole in My Head, then, is the sound of Grace back to the business of blisteringly blunt and spare, cold-sweat-speedy rawk (25 minutes, 11 tracks) with elements of her COVID-era folk effort Stay Alive and the metallic pop-tones of Against Me! brushing up against a messy lyrical mix. Yes, you can co-credit one-time Rise Against producer Matt Allison and Drive-By Truckers bassist Matt Patton for aiding-abetting in the rough haste of Hole in My Head. Everything else is pure Laura Jane: her oversized singing style eschewing nuance, her spiky guitars, her trash-can percussive style.
And while the fired-up folk of “Keep Your Wheels Straight” and “Dysphoria Hoodie” sound close to what she accomplished on Stay Alive, “I’m Not a Cop” feels fresh as it goes backward to utilize Patton’s Truckers’ boogie éclat and their vintage rock ’n’ roll extremes. If she’s not rhapsodizing on her facial feminization surgery with the album’s title track, Grace is looking outward to those “following or leading” on the gusty-guitar-filled “Punk Rock in Basements” and the trans-truisms of “Cuffing Season.” On that last cut in particular, Grace proves how she’s paying the cost to be the boss of her own destiny, no matter what the price.
