While Trophy Wife is now based out of Philly, member Katy Otto’s long history in D.C. with Del Cielo and her label Exotic Fever merits her an honorary local status. Arts Desk has covered Trophy Wife activity before, but somehow the album slipped through the cracks when it came out in August.
Cranking up some seriously pissed off rock & roll is damn refreshing these days. Trophy Wife guitarist Diane Foglizzo is a nonstop maelstrom of dark candor with an incendiary voice. Bolstered by the steady ferocity of Katy Otto, who pummels complex rhythmic change-ups without sounding overly academic, the two reach into screamo’s back-catalog and pick up the pieces that made acts like Hoover so vital in the ’90s.
Standout track “Four” takes an interesting turn, with it’s hammered-on guitar lick and unexpectedly upbeat intro, but it quickly delves into a more expected minor-key gut-kicker. On this hyper-focused, heavy album, it’s a brief but welcome respite. Patience Fury doesn’t run across genre lines, it doesn’t offer an accessible pop single, and it doesn’t let up. The impassioned, all-female duo digs into relationship issues and other less lucid topics from an empowered-and-infuriated feminine perspective. While it may draw few new converts to the scene, for the aggressive post-punk fan, every track on Patience Fury is fierce and raw—-and decidedly more furious than patient.
LISTEN: Trophy Wife – “Four“
[audio:http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/files/2010/12/03-Four.mp3]