Geisha Girls puts their contemporaries to shame with accessible high intensity alternative rock tinged with death rock sensibilities. Pounding tom percussion, use of 16th note hi-hats, and angular power-chord-shy guitar work may feel familiar to any Rikk Agnew/Rozz Williams era Christian Death fans. But with dry production and Hot Hot Heat styled vocals, Disappearing Act is as distinctively 2000s alternative rock as it is anything else.
The bass bounces, nearly plodding along with angsty disregard. That is until Retaining Water. With walking bass lines and a stripped down section where the bassist shines, Geisha Girls skirt the repetitive nature that current death rock bands accept as the boundaries of the genre.
In other ways, Disappearing Act is what Arctic Monkeys fans thought they were into. Tonal similarities wouldn’t be lost on a listener of both bands, but Geisha Girls don’t let the listener off as easy. Songs like This is Novelty, Finding Peers, and Skinny Wrists use dizzying compositional structures with puncturing frenetic drumming.
If you enjoy alternative rock, and are looking to get into something a little bit harder, you need to hear this album.
For fans of: Phantom Planet, Art Brut, Christian Death
Like Geisha Girls? Give these a listen: Infinite Void, Dame, The Atom Age
The Resident Sound 