SubPop
It’s telling that Brazilian dance-rock quintet CSS gave their sophomore release the working title Hunk of Shit . Floundering without the grounding presence of original bassist Iracema Trevisan Donkey struggles to find its arty-party focus in the centre of the dance floor drinking sweating and forgetting under the spinning mirror ball. Taking the reins of this unwieldy beast band member and producer Adriano Cintra has dutifully removed any vestiges of the band’s indie past replacing their formerly chaotic reveries with precise mixes that milk every digitized note dry of its vital humours.
Unabashedly commercial in its approach Donkey delivers a sugarcoated kick in the teeth that’s anything but subtle. Frontwoman Lovefoxxx all-too-willingly divests herself of the elusive hint of tropicalia that initially gave CSS their appeal instead adopting a more predictable grrl-rock singing style à la The Donnas Vancougar or Sleater Kinney. Resembling a toned-down Japanese-Brazilian version of Peaches she slides into character with a synthetic smile her sharply sweet vocals polished to poisonous perfection on tracks like “How I Became Paranoid” and “Believe Achieve.” The catsuit diva delivers her lyrics like a menu of complaints and she doesn’t hesitate to talk smack when it comes to the men who’ve done her wrong. The album’s Kafkaesque standout “I Fly” has Lovefoxxx phonetically describing the experience of becoming an insect in order to crawl down her lover’s throat. Her voyeuristic dreams are quickly dispelled though as he coughs her right back out. Can you blame him?
Evidently the Brazilian ensemble’s 2006 debut arrived at the right time — ensemble bands were the touchstone of the day as were exotic women in weird outfits (see: MIA). Exemplifying the Shonen Knife phenomenon CSS’s kitschy emulation of western culture and stilted pidgin English lyrics propelled them up the charts but inevitably the novelty wears off — in this case revealing little more than a rudimentary level of musical aptitude.
