From www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk

Little Claw have a new album out, it is called Human Taste and it seethes with yummy sweaty country nastiness. It’s all about fierce urges, craving and stomping down twisted and dusty paths. It reminds me of the following apocryphal story: there was this girl pop band who were tipped up to be the hottest thing in the air-waves, you know, proper Phil Spector material. Their van broke down in the derelict backwaters of most primeval Appalachia while they were out on tour, and they were never seen again. Some say that they roamed in the wilderness, filthy and starved, and at some point, under a furious storm that uprooted trees and chipped the sides of the hills, they got the feral blues. So they played under the gaze of mangy wild dogs and stern birds of prey, covered in mud and blood, they played with the fury of those who play for wild dogs and birds of prey and the moon gazing from between a shroud of storm clouds. They sounded a little bit like this.

From DJ Rick:

I saw Little Claw live in Portland with the expanded percussion unit that is featured on Human Taste plus an auxiliary noise unit who charmed the square waves so perfectly. It was surely one of the best live performances I enjoyed in 2008, and this new album surely was captured while the band was in that perfect zone. It is without a doubt joining the pantheon of best albums of 2009, and it’s almost certainly my favorite Little Claw album so far. This is a must for me on both formats. So-called shitgaze, be damned…This also draws from the roots of central/southern Ohio’s roots of weird punk and outsider rock, and then spins it backwards into a timewarp that’s 20-25 years deeper. Human Taste shall be all the more timeless, I reckon.

from http://mishkanyc.com/bloglin:

Little Claw – Human Taste (2009) [Ecstatic Peace!] // Grade: B+

Seamlessly strafing the dark yet raucous soundscapes between The Cramps Psychedelic Jungle and Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising… Human Taste, Little Claw’s third full length is their most and complete realized album to date.

With hellbent guitar rhythms that are seemingly always on the verge of a chaotic implosion and Kiylnn Lyndson vocal variance between droll coos and a slinky swagger (that at times sounds dead on like Christina Martinez of Boss Hog) the two take turns in either creating entropy or building the foundation while the other does the reverse.  Human Taste ushers in the band’s first true balance between dissonance and melody… a give and take battle whose only winner is us, the listener. My only major complaint is that Heath Heemsbergen see more time in front of the mic. Not only is “Frankie” easily the album’s best track, but his voice would give Little Claw the variety in sound and attack to take things to the eventual next step.


Badly translated from the French, from districtkennel.blogspot:

Even if it does justice to what constitutes Little Claw, that is to say, a certified group Ecstating Peace viscerally angry, the picture must surely date a little. For since the trio exile in Portland, Oregon became a quintet and the addition of percussion and synthesizers has allowed the group to grow and gain momentum. While still firmly based on Kilynn Lunsford, a formidable and captivating frontwoman.

The rise of Little Claw seems to have been staggering as Human Taste, latest album, already seems a classic indispensable crushes the notion of psyche-noise rock a little garage and a little lo-fi. Full control of noise the place now halfway between the Magik Markers and Liars, nothing less. The title song, badly irresistible and declined in two forms as jubilant one than the other (beginning and end of album), sets the tone for an astonishing album. Sometimes driven by a devastating force through multiple layers of drums and percussion (Modern Vampire Colors You Drown Breathing Tape), sometimes the pressure is released like the Magik Markers (Lay to Waste Slow Sticky Tornado or the remarkable drone - folk Golden Boy).

Full wad, Little Claw also succeeded in carrying out the No Wave nerve (Frankie) and even manages to overcome quite well the influence of Sonic Youth (Frozen in the Future sounds more like Bikini Kill, The Raincoats or Sleater-Kinney to their heyday).

 Still relatively unknown, Little Claw imposes its claw so amazing. Allowing them to differentiate extraction cumbersome and competition fierce.
 A feat in itself.

from Raven Sings The Blues:

Little Claw return with another album riding along the Sonic Youth highway, basked in a lovely sheen of distortion and fury. Human Taste eschews just a bit of the melodicism that underscored Spit and Squalor... and dives deeper into the scraggly noise side of the noise pop spectrum, though under the storm of amplifier squeal there still beats a heart of pop. Its as if Little Claw build songs, stand back and access them and then hack, chip, blast and kick away at them until they finally yield, then kick them bloodied and battered out the door. Human Taste leaves you agitated and punchy, equally ready to fight or slump to the floor with a gritty hangover of palpable unrest burning in your teeth. Whatever they're doing, they're doing it right, that's for certain. Ecstatic Peace has picked up the CD duties this time and Not Not Fun is scheduled to release the LP soon; not such bad credentials if you ask me.