Quick Overview
San Francisco Guardian ? Dec. 12-18, 2001
The Pre-Teens
First it was juvenile taunts (2000?s Why Don?t You Marry It?); now it?s a Sunday sermon. But really it?s no good judging a Pre-Teens CD by its cover. Cristina Espinosa (bass), Laura Davis (guitar) and Bert Garibay (drums) and neither noise-addicted children nor self-righteous servants of god. Davis sings about misfits on New and Old and maybe that?s what they are ? punk rock and pissed off but unable to resist the lure of a pretty song.Davis and Espinosa trade off on vocals ? with Espinosa taking more of the lead on this album ? harmonizing, repeating each other?s words, adding complications to earnest songs full of angst and anger. The latter surfaces almost every time Espinosa opens her mouth ? she sounds prone to self-hatred but doesn?t pull her punches when other people are in the room. You can hear years of familiar resentment and failed communications behind ?Railing? where she spits out sarcastic accusations at an absent parent. On ?Million Different Things? she runs away from cute girls to sit at home alone, telling someone. ?You think you do, but you really don?t want to know? ? a complicated thing to say in a song and on an album where everything is so brutally on display. The last track builds and then falls on the line, insisted upon, over and over, ?I?m a firecracker? waiting to go off,? ending the album on a note of nervous threats left hanging unresolved. (Lynn Rappaport)