Last week the Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy announced the departure of founding guitarist Thanasi Paul and their new status as a three-piece band. Today, they shared the news that their first project with the new lineup is an EP titled Perfect, which will come out toward the end of May. They also released the first single, “Control,” which begins ostensibly melancholic and tame. “I’m in control / That’s what I tell myself when all the walls around me close in,” Marisa Dabice sings. In grand MP fashion, distorted guitars and robust drums rise in a blaze around Dabice’s eventual glorious, curdling yell.
There’s a lot of great musicians who have been given swords, wielded swords, and recently written about swords. With “Control” and its accompanying video, Mannequin Pussy join the list of their sword-bearing forebears. Dabice, also the video’s director, lies around a makeshift bedroom in a sun-lit field. It’s the kind of bedroom one might find at a quaint, rustic bed and breakfast. It also has weapons hung on the walls, one being a shining sword that Dabice later grips with the utmost ferocity. The walls that suffocate her are not metaphorical anymore, and she proves her handle on her surroundings by viciously stabbing and burning them down. Very cathartic!
Also, it’s drummer Kaleen Reading’s birthday. Happy Birthday Kaleen! Watch “Control” below.
