Peaches
No Lube So Rude
KILL ROCK STARS
Despite a decade’s passage without album or incident, no one expected—nor should they—anything different from Peaches’ No Lube So Rude, the artist’s sixth full-length, than they got from The Teaches of Peaches, Fatherfucker, or Impeach My Bush a quarter of a century ago. For Peaches and Peaches alone owns the polemical, politicized meeting place of uninhibited sexuality, queer iconography, cleverly posed sarcasm, feminism, and funk, all wrapped in the mellow-harshing, distinctly mid-aughts tones of electroclash and smacked with aggressive rhythms and robo-singing/-rapping/-shouting—as if yelling “movie” in a firehouse.
Co-produced in Berlin with the anonymous figure The Squirt Deluxe, there’s something more sleekly hyperpop about No Lube So Rude than there is regarding, say, 2015’s Rub. The stiffly halting “Be Love,” the spacious but still curt “Hanging Titties,” and the speedy wonk-industrialism of “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” are each trebly and slick with their bottom ends hanging out like ass cheeks through short shorts. You could complain, if you’re so inclined that all of Peaches’ new album sounds same-y, but that would be like bitching that Dylan always sings nasally.
And yet, for all of its clean, chic sound, it’s difficult not to feel the heft in driving tracks such as lead single “Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business,” the ensuing preview “Fuck Your Face,” and “Grip,” as each cut gathers its thoughts—and all of its force—in dedication to delivering earnest, vulnerable, frank, and highly personal takes on what it means to be alive and be above 40 years of age (and enraged) in the 21st century.
