- In many ways, Perfect Pussy just get it right. Firstly, like a certain group of Russian dissidents, the Syracuse noise-punk band’s name ensures they get talked about well beyond punk circles, in all of the channels that still find such a handle confronting. There is something of the thrill of the forbidden in the buzz around them.

Secondly, like Deafheaven or even Cloud Nothings, Perfect Pussy show what can happen when heavier bands combine hard influences with a delicate touch. Their warm brand of cathartic noise has won over a surprisingly wide audience. Even Lorde is a fan.

And they deserve the hype. Put simply, Perfect Pussy’s debut LP Say Yes To Love is a formidable album. Its eight short tracks harness the wildest passions, coursing with power and vitality.

Like the plain white cover art, Say Yes To Love is pure and raw. Six of the eight tracks barely scratch the two-minute mark. The production is gravelly, everything pushed into the red. It’s a relentless, disorienting wall of reverb and feedback that kicks as hard as any Lightning Bolt or Melt-Banana record.

The band are solid in their own right, but the martial bark of frontwoman Meredith Graves is what makes Perfect Pussy truly original. Her delivery is startlingly personal, her lyrics torn diary pages speaking confidently of fear, sex and redemption.

Interference Fits is the grandiose centrepiece and the key to Say Yes To Love. This track is the album’s slowest and warmest, and consequently Graves fills the space more strikingly than at any other moment. Her voice falters just as she sings ‘I almost cried’ and you realise just how heartfelt this is.

For all this emotional straightforwardness, Say Yes To Love is also a surprisingly smart LP. Ponder how second-last track Advance Upon The Real starts out as the fastest and most brutal cut, yet after a minute it collapses into guitar ambience buried deep in tape hiss and impedance. It’s a perfect replication of the eerie ringing of tinnitus.

This is a brilliant, self-aware move. Not only do the band cut the maelstrom short early and make you wait four minutes for an explosion that never comes, but by creating an artificial ringing in your ears, they add a sense of physical impact to the emotional force. The message is clear: whether in your heart or your eardrums, this is an album to be felt as well as heard.

And clocking in at a mere 23 minutes, Say Yes To Love neither wastes a second nor outstays its welcome. Sure, it comes fully formed and doesn’t really develop or go anywhere. But when a record is this distilled, this purposeful, this powerful, it doesn’t need to.

- Henry Reese.