The New Queercore Queens: Off the back of a run-in of shows for album signings, we take a look at the London queer feminist punk quartet stormin’ it, their new Doom Loop album and what makes them tick.
The date is the 18th. It’s a Wednesday. An odd day for a gig. But it’s an in-store signing and live performance for a band, so it’s all totally acceptable. The band in question is an astute four-piece that go by the name of Dream Nails. Recommended by my girlfriend to come with at the time with very little to go off from the band themselves, I didn’t know what to expect. I was aware it was Amyl & the Sniffers kind of punk – wrought, heavy but playful.
I had seen and heard Doom Loop scrawled in Pitchfork write-ups and scattered everywhere at the local Rough Trade with its iconic album artwork of the lipstick-stained teeth, but nothing really more than that.
Bold and easy to warm to, the four members of Dream Nails – Anya Pearson, Lucy Katz, Mimi Jasson and new frontman Ishmael Kirby – took to the humble stage of Rough Trade Nottingham and elegantly snaked their way through the entirety of the 10-track sophomore, never failing to make clever remarks or whimsical anecdotes on how the songs originally came about. It was a live signing in the traditional sense, but was more a close-knit artist sitdown and talk, as opposed to just a bonafide turn-up-and-play kind of gig. Which was, quite refreshing.
This may be a normalised thing folks do in London – we picked up Anya’s surprise to our love for this when we mentioned it to her after the show – but the intimacy of such a setting may not have reached us yet in the Midlands.
Born from a chaotic mix of drag shows and sacred friendships, they have firmly established themselves as a political ecosystem for “trans and queer people and their allies who just love punk music.” Set within the rip-roar of idealistic punchy anthems, they wish to inspire hope and new traditions within a community that is far too often forgotten about or played down on. Addressing sexual assault in Good Guys, black transphobia in Case Dismissed, feminism, sexism, anxiety, relationships, crushes, school problems and fearlessness in a 10-track stalwart of fire and fury, it marks another commitment to the era of Riot Grrrl, uprooted firmly in the generations of Queercore – the sounds of LGBTQ+ punk to a tee.
It was anarchist punk addressed in a playful and entertaining way, with the core message still present at the forefront of your minds. It’s not necessarily shoved down your throat – but it’s not residing in the corner either; shuffling its feet and supposedly agreeing with the points raised.
Monster is very much a punk anthem rifled in distortion and scratchy guitars before it skews into a buoyant Wet Leg-esque of a chorus. A moody misfit Sometimes I Do Get Lonely, Yeah reflects the bands’ magic on conscious rapping while posing as a song very much pillaged from the confines of slow-burning punk. Geraniums is very much Bikini Kill as it is Dream Nails – a plausible statement to society scrutinisation on women not being able to strictly play in a band for the sole reason because they were not boys.
It’s an album that can fit righteously within any era – be it the 1970s punk swagger of the riot grrl era before their time or very much in the now, with its powerful lyricism within a queer, feminist struggle that becomes more present as each day passes. It is also an album that signifies the bands’ talent and their mission statement to become the “biggest queer political band in the world.” Considering the strength of Doom Loop and what carnage it’s caused so far – amongst tour with label titans Nova Twins, mind – there’s no reason they can’t be.
Everyone has their own doom loop of struggle and oppression. Dream Nails posse have shared their own – what’s yours?
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