Potty-mouthed Canadian electroclash artist Peaches has been making risqué music for more than 15 years now and on her sixth studio album Rub, she continues to thrill and titillate with dirty beats and even dirtier lyrics. Don’t play this one around Mom.
Peaches came into the spotlight mainly after her song, “Fuck the Pain Away,” was used in the Sofia Coppola film “Lost in Translation,” and it still gets notoriety today by being featured in shows like “True Blood.”
Her self-produced debut, The Teaches of Peaches, is filthy and simplistic, and critics continue to have differing opinions about it. Rub is an album six years in the making and marks a bit of a return to these roots after her previous album, 2009’s I Feel Cream, found Peaches exploring cleaner-sounding, almost-disco beats.
Rub, as a whole, brings some of the filth from her debut while maintaining the sleek and flawless production from her previous work. It is one of the most enjoyable listens of the year and one of the best of Peaches’ career.
Peaches, who has often had a penchant for blurring the gender lines and performing while wearing strap-ons, spits her fair share of X-rated rhymes on this album. There’s not a private part that goes unmentioned on this album, and if it’s perturbing to listen to a song about, and titled, “Vaginoplasty,” then consider buying Kids Bop’s latest disc instead. Still, few artists will make a song celebrating and accepting transgender women in such an outright way, so for this Peaches should truly be celebrated.
Fellow Canuck Feist assists on the closing track, “I Mean Something,” and the results are quite wonderful. Her soft, coffee shop vocals blend surprisingly well with Peaches’ sexy gender-bending bravado.
Another highlight is the ’80s-inspired “Dumb Fuck” which captures Peaches trading the rapping for some surprisingly strong singing.
In contrast, “Light in Places,” sounds like it could have been an outtake from her more polished I Feel Cream album. While a bit out of place among the dirtier tracks, the song is refreshing, lush sounding and probably the most demure that Peaches has sounded in years.
Surprisingly, while being such a stellar album, it begins with the by-far weakest track, “Close Up,” featuring Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, who basically speaks her lines soullessly like a strung-out person brought from the street into the recording booth and paid a few bucks.
Still, Peaches redeems herself on tracks like “Pickles” and “Rub,” which should rock any and every dance floor.
Overall Rub is an excellent album that ranks among the most interesting and fun of 2015. There may be some lyrics that border on going a bit too far, but that’s truly beside the point. Lighten up and dance. Or, as Peaches would suggest, rub one out.
4.5/5
Michael’s Picks: “Pickles,” “Dumb Fuck,” “Light in Places,” “How You Like My Cut”
