This piece was originally published on The Girl Can’t Help It, which is a Tumblr where I post my (generally 3rd Wave and Sex Positive) feminist writings. I have recently been troubled by the underlying misogyny that I’ve noticed in recent criticisms of the band Puro Instinct, so I decided to discuss it here…

So after several months away, I’ve decided to get back into the action with this here weblog. I was partially inspired by my girl Molly Lambert over at This Recording, and partially inspired by this strange, wonderful, but often troubling word that we live in.

Puro Instinct, who are one of my favorite bands currently doing it, recently put out their debut LP, Headbangers in Ecstasy. Although we’re just under 2 months into the year, I can already say that this one will be high on my list. From top to bottom it is a moody sonic experience that is equal parts cotton candy pink and melancholy gray. It moves effortlessly from dream pop, to an intriguingly intangible fuzz of vintage, FM radio near hits. In short, it was an output that was beyond impressive from a band that had already been wowing me.

When Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen reviewed the record, he had a different take on it.

Now I’m not saying its a sin to dislike something that I love. I can certainly see an angle from which someone might not be feeling this record, and on top of that we’d collectively die of boredom if we all vibed on the same stash. My issue with Cohen’s near slam of the record was his use of off base references, and (more topically to this web space) his thinly veiled use of gender in the overall critique of the record, and the band.

In case you didn’t know, the two main members of Puro Instinct are Piper and Skylar Kaplan who, as many male music writers have pointed out, are young (blond) sisters. Cohen opens his review by pointing out this oft repeated bit of biographical information. As he continues, his review spends just as much time editorializing about Los Angeles culture as it does on the actual sound of the actual record.  He wraps it all up by describing the record as a “sonic embodiment” of the album’s cover, i.e “pretty, vacant.”

This is the album cover
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