Take one listen to Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries’ eponymous album (released November 9 and produced by Alice Bag), with its playful synthesizers and insistent guitar and drums, and vulnerability will not be the first thing to come to mind. Take another listen, however, and you’ll realize that this is a grrrl band who understands.
What do they understand? Panic attacks, for one thing: the opening track, “Panic Attack,” is an homage to anxiety in all its unpredictable terror. “I’m a weirdo, I’m a weirdo, I’m a weirdo, I’m a weirdo” captures the repetitive bully that is a negative thought that will not go away.
They understand fear in general, and pain, and discrimination (especially against femmes and queer and fat people), and self-consciousness, and also BFF-love and tears of hatred and internet rage. Appropriately enough given all of this emotional literacy, Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries’ vinyl record is available from Emotional Response Records.
But this is not a record that will bum you out. Laugh-out-loud lines like “I’m coming out of the broom closet / I’m a witch!” and “I don’t wear black because it’s slimming / I wear black because I’m dead on the inside!” (both lines from the song “Witch”) will make you snort, nod, and yes, laugh. And you’ll dance along to the crooning ooo’s and woo’s of “Fat Girl Tears” while your understanding grrrl band sings “I’m crying fat girl tears / they taste like ice cream and root beer / because you hate what you fear!”
Experience your emotional response at https://fattycakes.bandcamp.com/.
