Send "Miss Derringer " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The term "dress-up" tends to be used as a pejorative in indie circles, typically indicating an artist who seems to be reaching more than grasping. But Miss Derringer's custom duds are no more a put-on than Kings of Leon's Shaggy wardrobe or the Decemberists faux Victorian accoutrements. The L.A. band plays its parts to the hilt: A sculptor dealing in darkly whimsical phantasmagoria, singer Liz McGrath appears in a sequined baton-twirler leotard with a goth marching-band helmet and prison tattoo for the band's third and best album, Winter Hill, which is a change from the Weimar rockabilly chanteuse she played on 2006's Lullabies. Enlisting local designers like Adele Mildred and Winter Rosebudd, she's a West Coast Karen O, but aims for retro composure rather than punk disarray. The men who back her wear black as a nod to the Man in Black but accessorize like Mike Ness: matching wallet chains, western shirts, black armbands, heavy eye make-up.To their considerable credit, Miss Derringer sound exactly like they look and don't need the look to sound good. Just as they mix and match fashions, they blend country, punk, rockabilly, showtunes, cabaret, and New Wave into a surprisingly sturdy and seamless sound. With faster tempos and more pronounced hooks than their previous albums, Winter Hill is a concept album of sorts about the Irish Gang Wars of the 1960s, when the McLaughlin Gang and the Winter Hill Gang made Boston a bloody battlefield. These songs are the band's playful approximations of what might have been playing on the radio as gangsters drove to hit jobs or slumped in their seats during stakeouts. Accordingly, the band build from period-specific sounds, but it's highly unlikely-- okay, outright impossible-- that James "Whitey" Bulger or Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi were listening to X and Social Distortion while whacking McLaughlin soldiers or laundering money. Perhaps because Miss Derringer are enough removed in time from their music heroes, they don't have a kneejerk reverence toward Carl Perkins, Lesley Gore, or Blondie, which leaves them free to compress half a century of pop history into short, sharp, smart pop songs....full text |
| Blogcritics |
| The title of the album, which is being released July 14 on Nickel and Dime Records/Triple X, has nothing to do with the four seasons but is guaranteed to raise your temperature. This is one scorcher of a record. As hot as “Summer In The City,” Dick Dale surf-guitar riffs, blockbuster action movies and platinum blond bikini babes roaming the beach. And while on the subject of this heat wave, there’s no getting around discussing Liz McGrath, the petite project of the creative forces behind this Los Angeles-based band. In the burgeoning days of the New Wave movement, they said, “Blondie is a group.” In today’s New West revival, they’ll say, “Miss Derringer is a group.” But if Debbie Harry was the one to watch in the late Seventies, now it’s time to keep your eyes on McGrath....full text |
| 411mania |
| Morgan Slade , lead guitarist of Miss Derringer and husband to the band's lead singer, the Gwen Stefani-ish Liz 'Bloodbath' McGrath, one said that the majority of their musical influences, like The Shangri-Las and The Ronnettes , were 'probably coming out of the car stereos while a gangster in the back seat wrapped piano wire around the neck of a gangster in the front seat.' The quote, taken in the context of the band's newest release, Winter Hill , (which in itself is a reference to an Irish Mob from the 60's in Boston.) is apt, as most of the album is music to murder by, or in the quieter moments, music to reflect upon why that poor bastard (whomever "he" may be) had to die or at the very least, deserves to die. The album opens with "Click Click (Bang Bang)" which sounds a lot like something Quentin Tarintino would use while one of his super heroines goes on a joyous, bloody and righteous killing spree. McGrath has a Debbie Harry quality to her voice, as it both feminine and sensual, while at the same time dark and full of secrets, only some of which she seems willing to reveal. "Bulletproof Heart" which sounds like The Runaways covering Leader of The Pack , further reinforces the notion that the men who used to be in her life, ('ghosts",she calls them at one point) aren't just gone in the romantic sense, but in the 'no longer sucking air' sense. McGrath, in a previous life, was a sculptor of some note, and most of the songs on the album have a very deliberate, sculptor-like attention to detail. The songs have an uncomplicated, almost garage-band like simplicity to them, but it's clear the simplicity took work, time and dedication. This album has been fussed-over and perfected by a group of musicians who obviously knew they had something special, and on tracks like "Death By Desire" and "All The Pretty Things", the time spent pays off nicely. "Death By Desire", in particular, with its flowing melody and dream-like atmosphere is one of the standout tracks on the album....full text |
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