It seems like every day, I hear more and more stories of the unsolicited bothering of women friends, and women in general. Cat-callers, street harassers: If this is you, fuck off, or so Brooklyn quartet Weeping Icon tells you so much more eloquently and forcefully in their single, “Jail Billz.” The track is the opener of their debut EP, Eyeball Under, being co-released by Fire Talk Records and Kanine Records, and it’s a sonic manifestation of female frustration and retaliation against male entitlement and aggression. The band attacks swiftly out of the gates, the thwack of Lani Combier-Kapel’s hollowed snare drum like a knock to your gullet with every hit. The brute tonal power of the three Sarahs (Fantry, Reinold, Lutkenhaus) is enough to bring you to your knees. It’s sharp, it’s angry, and it’s unrelenting. Because why shouldn’t it be? Why does it have to be? It has to be.
Combier-Kapel belts out, “I’m not beautiful,” not in a self-degrading way, but more in a leave-me-the-fuck-alone way. Like any woman ever who’s been approached against their will, they’re beyond tired of being on the defensive, and they’re taking back what’s theirs, as the band states, “But ending this isn’t simply to retaliate; it’s to demand recompense: “If you touch me and I have to fight you, you’re paying for my jail bills.” They’re not kidding around. They’re not afraid of you this time.
Eyeball Under is out digitally July 14, with a vinyl release on September 22.
