The first thing to catch me off guard was to hear that this all-girl outfit was from Scotland. Hailing from Glasgow, The Hedrons have a sound that that I wouldn’t ascribe to being Scottish. Their music brings more domestic influences to my ear, from The Stooges and Ramones to the obvious all-girl references like the Runaways, Blondie and the Muffs.
Wherever they come from, I won’t fault them for it because The Hedrons play rock-solid rock and stripped down punk, without a bit of pretension or the “look at us, we’re all girls” gimmick that some girl bands use to grab attention from adolescent male fans.
On their debut album, One More Won’t Kill Us runs a range of rock sounds. The big booming Stooges-styled guitars on “Heatseeker” and “I Need You” (with a riff reminiscent of Iggy’s “The Passenger”), the crunchy grunge riffs on “Couldn’t Leave Her Alone”, and the poppy punk Briefs-styled sounds on “Frame of Mind” are just samples of what comes across on One More…. There are also guitars lines that hint at the Minutemen, and some full-blown rock that totally makes me think of one of my favorite all-girl groups, The Lunachicks.
While that range of audible influences may seem like the album runs rampant, these girls provide enough of their own take on it all to keep the record cohesive and powerful, and their vocalist Tippi comes across as a true rockstar – all confidence and swagger, without a trace of misplaced attitude or anger. She’s a pro, and she knows it.
Even at their poppiest, like on the upbeat “Be My Friend” these ladies know how to rock, and while the album’s title probably refers to the almost-title track “One More Won’t Kill Me”, a thick-riffed desperate-sounding tune about drug addiction, I like to think it’s about pleading with the band to quickly release another album. Seriously, how about it girls? One more won’t kill us.
