Ballerina Black - Injureless EP

By: Joel Frieders

I refuse to write an intro to this review. I fucking love this fucking band. Ballerina Black sound like Mutemath with properly mixed drums, Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots a-few-weeks-pre-rehab vocals (when he used to sing into his crotch and whimper but you had no other choice but to fucking love it), and an Interpol-ish meets 30 Seconds To Mars-ish desperation. It is fucking unbelievably endearing, and I'm putting my complete and wholehearted stamp on it.

What's my stamp? It's what you'd see if you were the recipient of a tea bag from me, but I actually paid cash money to get a stamp made and now I go around stamping my balls on shit and saying "I've put my stamp on this" like I just did up above. Mmhmm.

The electro elements of Ballerina Black's Injureless EP take this from fucking awesome post punk band, to band I can't fucking wait to watch fucking take over the world. The song construction throughout these four tracks is monstrous, as each aspect of build, grasp, tighten, release, and slap in the fucking face again, are attended to perfectly. The choruses are introspective, catchy and memorable enough to sing to yourself while staring at yourself in a mirrored room you built yourself, if only to ask yourself what you, yourself, consider the better of cuts of beef.

The piano supporting the clean reverby guitar on Japanese Title, held firm by drums that scream for air drumming, is an amazing way to open an EP, and Injureless as a collection is made stronger by this as a lead piece. It's consistency in rhythm and clean guitar tone makes the vocals resemble what you think of when you imagine David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth, airy and full but doused in spandex covered loneliness. It's fucking awesome.

The eerie guitar work on NTSB is that beautiful crispness that's made even more gorgeous with the juxtaposition of a subtle bend, and I can't help but hear what I love most about The Hero Factor from Oklahoma in Ballerina Black.

I will need more music from Ballerina Black to confirm my instant assumption that they are one of the best bands in Los Angeles, but I can tell from listening to them that they wear black boots with many many eyelets, blow their noses on the skins of animals since gone extinct, drink the blood of mountain lions mixed in a 2:11 ratio with fetus tears, and sleep in only the finest velvet.

BALLRNA BLCK R FCKNG HLL YS.