THE LINDA LINDAS - Growing Up

After all, the idea of an all-female band isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it's unlikely to ever go out of style, much like (garage) punk-rock itself. In the case of the Linda Lindas, the two go hand in hand, and to complete the picture there's also a remarkably low average age (the drummer, barely eleven, beats by a year the "record" set by her Redd Kross counterpart at the band's debut, while the "oldest" member has only just come of age) and, despite being based in Los Angeles, a non-Western ethnic background ("half Asian, half Latina," as they put it) — a combination that's intriguing, but could also raise doubts about the authenticity of the phenomenon, or even suggest a carefully engineered project, given the buzz the band has started generating.

But beyond any socio-political considerations, what really speaks for the Linda Lindas is this "Growing Up" itself, a debut that leaves little room for overthinking and hits viscerally, leaving few doubts about the genuineness of the project.

The pounding rhythms and surging electric chords burrow into punk territory, evoking the beach-punk variant of X ("Nino," though saddled with the weakest lyrics, a sort of trite ode to one member's cat), or racing along at a hundred miles an hour on a wave of melody like a female version of Buzzcocks or Green Day ("Remember").

Closing out the brief journey (under half an hour) is the devastating "Racist Sexist Boy," a vitriolic j'accuse spat out with the psychotic rasp of Lydia Lunch and heavy guitars, before plunging headlong into a foxcore breakdown — the very track that put the band on the map for its anti-racist stance, an important lyrical component but not the dominant one: "Growing Up" is mostly about the struggles of living through a delicate phase like adolescence, and more broadly about the difficulty of growing up (regardless of which stage of life one is in); yet despite their tender age, the Linda Lindas display real maturity in confronting their own struggles, through self-acceptance and the appreciation of both themselves and others, finding perfection in everyone despite their differences (as in the aforementioned "Cuanta Veces") and staying grounded in reality, relying on themselves even in the imagined possibility of acquiring supernatural powers (“What if magic was real?/ What if magic revealed/ Something nobody would ever would ever/ Wish upon themselves or nobody else/ Maybe reality is better” in the infectious chorus of "Magic").

Now, though, comes the hard part for these very young musicians, who will face a number of challenges: confirming all the good work done so far without getting crushed in the gears of the social-media machine, given the buzz they've stirred up; refining their style by developing their own distinct personality; and, no less important or to be taken for granted, simply growing up.