When a band’s name is a dark wordplay on the infamous character who inspired girl-asks-out-guy dances, you know you can probably expect something edgy and feminist. Shady Hawkins delivers on that expectation; in fact, they take that notion to the extreme. The band’s Facebook description simply reads “militant feminist revengecore”. So yeah, this isn’t your mom’s grrrl band.

The Brooklyn group’s most recent LP, “Dead to Me”, starts with a full-throttle punk tune, “Not My Comrades,” where lead singer Suzy X shrieks, “You’re dead to me! You’re dead to me!”. In “Wrath”, she sneers, “Don’t you ever come my way…or I will set you straight!”. If Shady Hawkins were a person, she’d be one chica you wouldn’t want to mess with. Still, later tracks– my personal favorite piece of ear candy from this album is “When Yr Gone”– begin to show a trace of vulnerability. Beneath those power chords and fuck-you attitude lurks an audibly delicate side, if only hinted at in fleeting moments of vocal inflection.

I love this album because it’s musically so tight– it’s a sick punk record, and it’s not trying to be lo-fi or shoegaze or chillwave or anything trendy at all– and that’s why it’s just so goddamn cool. It is worth pointing out that Suzy X sounds a helluva lot like Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney, but I certainly have no qualms with that– somebody’s gotta fill the S-K void, right?

Sound good to you? Give it a listen on bandcamp.