VOLUMIZER
Gaga For Gigi (Mint)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

---

I promise it wasn't intentional when I thought, just a moment ago, that "Mint sure puts out fresh music." It made me snicker for a moment once I realized the pun, but facts are facts, and this is one of those. The entire western Canadian indie scene has been sparkling with life and vitality of late, in fact, and Volumizer is right in the thick of it.

And why not? The band members know how it's done because they've done it before, long, long ago. Rodney Graham played guitar with U-J3RK5, Bill Napier-Hemy did the same with Pointed Sticks (though he spends much of his time playing bass with Volumizer these days), and then there's the legendary Jade Blade of The Dishrags. She was just a kid when they hit the road with The Clash and The Ramones, but those girls could rock, and Jade wrote, played guitar and sang her ass off. 23 years later she's Professor Jill Bain of the art history department at University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC, married to Napier-Hemy, a mother of one with another on the way.

Apparently the Prof wasn't ready to put away her rock and roll shoes. These three, along with drummer John Cody and frontwoman Shannon Oksanen, have come together to form a helluva band and record Gaga For Gigi, a helluva CD with 11 Jade Blade originals devoid of weak spots. The guitar attack is loud without overwhelming anything else in the mix, the band is tight, and Oksanen, a visual artist in her other life, turns out to be the perfect pitcher for Blade's new wave curve ball style of songwriting that doesn't sound the least bit dated.

I don't know what they intend to do with this, as there are lives and careers and children to think about now, but if all we get is Gaga For Gigi, we have nothing to complain about.

© 2002 - DJ Johnson