Named after an Airheads flavor and made up of two gingers, White Mystery recently dropped their latest album, Hellion Blender.
Alexandra Brooks White, aka Miss Alex White, and her brother, Francis Scott Key White, are the duo of ginger kids forming White Mystery. Miss White kicked off her music career playing guitar in a punk band when she was 13, followed by a stint in a band called The Red Lights. Later, she played with Chris Saathoff in a project called Miss Alex White and Chris Playboy. After Saathoff’s tragic death in a car accident, she founded Miss Alex White and the Red Orchestra, dropping two albums.
In 2008, Miss White and her brother, Francis, started White Mystery. Since then, White Mystery has dropped a new album or EP every year, performed 1000 times on three continents, modeled for Levi Jeans, jammed with Robert Plant, and played on NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly. They’ve shared the stage with Iggy Pop, Garbage, Thee Ohsees, and Patti Smith.
Tagged as everything from psychedelic punk rock to alt-rock-country-punk to grit punk, what they are is stripped down garage punk, a raw, muscular sound with beau coup immensity.
Hellion Blender contains 10 tracks, opening with “Boy Next Door,” a grinding, grimy punk tune with a dirty guitar from the bowels of hell and nuclear-powered drums. “Penny Saved” flat-out surges with luminous energy, riding on Miss White’s maxed-out fuzzy guitar, as her shiny, raging vocals snarl overhead.
“Paint Yo’nails” sheds the wall of sound punch, going for a Spartan melody full of throbbing tribal drums and schmoozing, brawny guitar colors.. “Ghost Signs” starts off austerely, and then ascends to rough-and-ready punk momentum on a sneering psychedelic guitar.
Hellion Blender pumps out pulverizing tones, aching with visceral impetus, like demons fleeing the pit of Tartarus. Miss White’s compact, compressed voice makes her the Mistress of Sonic Advantage, making Hellion Blender equivalent to an aural grand mal seizure.
Randy Radic is a Left Coast author and writer. Author of numerous true crime books written under the pen-name of John Lee Brook. Former music contributor at Huff Post.
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