Review: Cherry Glazerr – Stuffed & Ready

Cherry Glazerr
Stuffed & Ready

Secretly Canadian
Street: 02.01
Cherry Glazerr = Lush + Kathleen Hannah

Clementine Creevy pulls a lot of levers: artist, musician, actress, model, provocateur and rock star. She may be on the fringe right now, but if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear her coming. Her band, Cherry Glazerr (named after NPR host Chery Glaser) is a band that sounds new and old at the same time. It’s ’90s rock that sounds modern, new wave that makes you uncomfortable with a millennial punk riot grrrl to light up a new generation. Listening to Cherry Glazerr’s fourth full-length album release, Stuffed & Ready, is like opening Pandora’s box inside a hornets nest.

Creevy is a wrecking ball on this record. She breaks down all the walls and barriers that box up a song. Whatever leap of faith Creevy chooses—whether it’s incest, loneliness, anger, depression, self loathing—Creevy pushes it all over the edge knowing there isn’t a safety net. That’s the greatness of this album. Cherry Glazerr takes you places you never see coming. Creevy’s vocals and lyrics, at times, may sound feathery, airy and light, but when you least expect it, they turn into knife blades and gut you. “Where should I go, daddi? / What should I say? / Where should I go? / Is it OK with you? / Who should I fuck, daddi? / Is it you?” Creevy sings on the surprisingly bouncy and new wave–sounding track, “Daddi.” Creevy is a master at providing perfectly placed, uneasy tension. Not only is she so casually open and honest on this track, she provides her own solution to ward off her monster. “Smoking makes me taste like metal / To keep you away.”

There are 10 tracks on Stuffed & Ready and while they seem to fly right by, you are left completely exhausted at the end. Listening to this record is like binge-watching a must-see Netflix series. The track “Wasted Nun” is one of the stand-out tracks on this album—it’s a track Shirley Manson would have killed for in the ’90s. “Flesh and bones, giving in / I can’t see the fog I’m in / But it’s there, in my eyes / In my car, in the sky / I’m so tired, weekend in / I’m an unproductive sin / Special lady with her issues / You can sue me if I kiss you.” Then Creevy delivers the coup de grâce: “I’m a wasted nun / And I don’t have fun.”

Cherry Glazerr is now a three-piece band: Clementine Creevy (guitars), Tabor Allen (drums) and Devin O’Brien (bass). The three together have tightened, cleaned up and smoothed out their sound providing Creevy a canvas on which to work. Stuffed & Ready is an honest, explicit, perfectly put-together, beautiful mess. Whether Creevy is using skeevy poetic turns or turning her post-traumatic, soft roar into a blistering, primal scream. “I SEE MYSELF IN YOU AND THAT’S WHY I FUCKING HATE YOU!!” Creevy unleashes on the track “Stupid Fish.” Cherry Glazerr sneaks up on you. This is exactly why I love this record. I love how it moves and shifts until I am pleasantly unsteady and off balance—knowing something is going to come along and knock me sideways. It’s very punk rock. On the opening track, “Ohio,” Creevy all but whispers: “I wish myself the best, but I’m broken / The light inside my head went dead, and I turned it off.“ The darkness makes for an amazing record. (Kilby Court: 03.02) –Russ Holsten