Honeyblood

Photo credit: Vice.

Few bands can boast a name that completely nails their sound, musical approach and general attitude, but Honeyblood certainly can. As befits their name, their attack is equally acerbic as it is alluring, for every despotic riff in their scorn, there are delectable harmonies with which they adorn their music. These elements have received booster shots on their latest album Babes Never Die.

Losing a drummer and bandmember, who comprised half of your band, to grueling touring a mere two months after the release of your debut album would most likely trigger an existential crisis in most people. Not in Stina Tweeddale, it seems. If anything, resolve is at her strongest and the addition of Cat Myers has only made things more intense. Not only has the sound become heavier, their harmonies have gained from all the adrenaline, as observed in comeback singles Ready for the Magic and Sea Hearts, which sees the band as the tightest, most melodic, and lightest on their feet they’ve even been.

The subject matter of their album has also received a reboot. In Babes Never Die, Tweeddale explores the increasingly well-trodden subject of female empowerment – not in a socially self-conscious, confrontational approach, but more by way of the entirely self-reliant, libertarian mantra of girls “doing whatever the fuck they want” as Stina put it in the past. This is best put to picture in the video for Ready for the Magic, in which a tribe of feral little girls capture, immolate and eat the band for their supper. Sweet and sour by name and nature, Honeyblood will bring delicious delirium live at the Phoenix on May 2nd.