Album Review: We Be Xuxa by Mika Miko

Mika Miko burn through We Be Xuxa with the same ferocious-yet-fun energy of C. Y. S.

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To make a big thing out of Mika Miko’s We Be Xuxa would be beside the point. Of course, on a literal level, the album itself is a little thing: twelve shards of SoCal punk brevity. (Only one song goes substantially beyond two minutes -- all the way to three minutes.) But more important, this album sloughs off sentimentality and keeps away any attempt at making it into anything more than what it is: spastic energy solidified into verse-chorus-verse form.

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A few years back, it would have been hard to predict that a scuzz-punk duo like No Age would gain wide popularity outside of a niche fanbase, or that the band's all-ages homebase the Smell would come to be seen as one of the preeminent breeding grounds for underground rock. Even as the indie paradigm has shifted towards the noisier, it's still difficult to guess which (if any) of the acts in No Age's wake will go on to find similar success. Surely due for increased attention, though, are Smell torchbearers Mika Miko, a female five-piece specializing in a brash (but danceable) mixture of classic late-70s punk, hardcore thrash, and skronky no wave.

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Mika Miko is the mostly female mainstay of LA’s Smell Scene, a skittery, no-wave five-piece, whose jagged rhythms, blunt alto-chanted non sequiturs and staccato guitars recall late 1970s bands like Delta 5, Liliput and the Raincoats. There’s one male member now – new drummer Seth Dunham – but the energy is like an all-women’s dorm at 3 a.m., raunchy jokes, shrieks of laughter and late night snacking (the album features not one but two songs about wanting a “Turkey Sandwich”). Yet, while there’s no getting around the fact that Mika Miko is predominately female, they’ve got no interest in girl-band clichés.

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