I love it when local bands are killing it; when they cut through the scene ceiling and grab some recognition they deserve. Though I usually don’t give a shit about what Pitchfork thinks, yet Ribbon Skirt (FKA Love Language) recently nabbed a stellar review in the music rag for their debut album Bite Down. And it’s well deserved, for a band that has gone through a name, lineup, and sonic M.O. change in the last few years.
We now have a darker, more introspective band that has taken their well-known, atmospheric indie guitar rock and plunged it into new psychedelic waters, (evident on the opener “Deadhorse,”) one full of catchy wall of sound shoegaze, and boppy post-punk, that touches on Indigenous identity (courtesy of lead vocalist Tashiina Buswa), life, grief, trauma, and existentialism.
As “Deadhorse” and “Cellophane” play with memory and loss, delivered with the kind of controlled chaos that suggests emotional wreckage just barely kept at bay, “Off Rez” pairs serrated guitar lines with lyrics about displacement and survival, turning a personal narrative into something anthemic. “Wrong Planet” has to be my current favourite, hitting like a slow-building thunderstorm, all tension and tremor, before exploding into a lacerating post-punk rock.
Buswa brings a magnetic, sometimes raw quality to every song, whether she’s delivering the fragile confessions on “Mountains” or the barbed hooks on “Cut.” Her voice carries the weight of the stories she tells with Ribbon Skirt: ones about land, bodies, histories, and perhaps, a bleak, yet hopeful future—about not just surviving, but biting down and pushing forward. We also have to give props to Billy Riley’s layered guitar work all over Bite Down, especially in a warm blanket of a track like “Earth Eater,” and the drumming from Lan Thockchom who keeps the beat for the album’s truly sinister moments.
With Bite Down, Ribbon Skirt has delivered a debut full of guts, tenderness, and razor-sharp songwriting. It feels urgent, personal, and—most importantly—like the start of something vital.
