Reviews

“This opening act stole the Show. 60,000 fans enthusiastically coaxed
these women musicians into five more encores” …..Roskilde Festival, Denmark
“Over the past decade or so Messinger has been developing her solo act When Girls Collide.  Although LC  once characterized WGC as Industrial Cabaret, since moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin, TX three years ago, her sound has evolved into what she now describes as “KD Lang on acid in a barnyard full of loud animals” and “Spaghetti Western guitar meets a warehouse rave.”  In truth, LC’s sound is difficult to pin down.  It is eccentric, eclectic, whimsical, occasionally atonal and often just plain weird.  Her songs are typically rhythmic and danceable, spilled across a musical landscape colored with electronic doodles, unexpected guitar tweaks, percussive blips and unnerving vocal mutations.  As for her voice, it is filled with an androgynous ambiguity that is at times smooth and smokey, others brazen and screeching.  She is also a formally trained multi-instrumentalist, most notable for her innovative guitar work”.   
 Online music blog by Stephen Smyth
“Wasted Ladies” is a very bizarre album that could   easily be classified as psycho-circus pop for mental patients. It is   sporadic, accidental and blithe – all the elements necessary to create a hit   or miss album. But in Messinger’s case the carefree plethora of noise works   remarkably well. The album opens with three back-to-back-to-back gems surely   capable of arousing the sleeping dance beast inside our loins……… The   whole auditory experience of “Wasted Ladies” is the supreme ruler   of Crazy Land – start to finish.Straight jackets not included, LC Messinger continues to create and explore   the outer limits of what is possible in the music industry.
……Ben Blascoe,KCSU 
“Visually and musically one of the most intriguing women in music’s recent history”………Andrea Thal…. Music promoter, Zurich, Switzerland
“Killer Guitar”…….Zitty magazine, Berlin, Germany
“Spunky funky uber- beats -music for Tristan and
Isolde to whirl to at a warehouse rave..This stuff could make Nick Cave do the
funky chicken”..San Francisco Bay Guardian, USA
Hit Me With Your Tail Wag
[Crush M Records; 2005; Electro-Rock]
Rag Magazine ReviewNot since Michael Young (review here) have I seen a record cover that deceived me more and did absolutely no justice to the recording. Often, an album with excellent cover art builds up to a disappointing listen. The majority of the time the quality and style of the artwork are on a somewhat even level with the music. But then there’s the rare case, such as this, that I look at an album cover and just say “What the fuck?!” and reluctantly give it a spin and can’t believe what I hear… I could believe it if it was complete shit, but it’s not…

This time it’s the new solo effort from When Girls Collide, which is LC Messinger, former front woman of 80s Euro-Jazz-Punk band Unknown Gender. Performing, producing, engineering, mixing and mastering was all handled by Messinger. All the while, managing to 80s-future-guitar-hop-ingly rock your ass off.

Opener “Song For Me” combines crunchy, electronic, ghettoblaster shakin’ beats and 60s garage rock-ish guitars to form one of the most unique sounds I’ve heard lately. It’s like 90s electro-clash with a country twang. The following track, “Swept Away”, is an odd, but strangely pleasing, mix of old school hip-hop beats and lyrics that remind me of nothing but Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” that got a subtle dub remix, filtered through a hit of ecstasy. “Tail Wag” continues with the main constant thoughout the album, the heavy electronic framework of each track. This time with a smoother, funkier swagger.

As the album nears the halfway mark, it takes a sudden, dancy direction with the pulsating rhythm and abundance of samples and effects on “Inspector Moon”. “Talk To Me” has an early 90s throwback industrial sound and anguished vocals. There are even scattered tracks that range from down-tempo, jazzy grooves that introduce horns to new wave-ish outbursts that introduce scitars.

The consistency and quality at times waiver and ideas seem underexplored, but it’s an overall fresh sound in a vast crowd of unoriginal sounding rock bands…but seriously, that’s not the cover this record should have.