ROTTEN APPLES-Real Tuff (Trash 2001 Records)
Fourteen short but catchy songs are on this CD of the ROTTEN APPLES. The four ladies make a good mix of punk, hardcore, riot grrrl music, and they do it with a lot of flair. The ladies can play their instruments, and they’re not just slamming their strings in order to make as much noise as possible, trying to hide the fact that they actually can’t hit a note right. The band sounds raw, but also has a lot of melody in their sound. Variation all over, which makes them appealing to many different music fans. ROTTEN APPLES consist of Dejha Colantuono on vocals, guitar and keyboards, J.J. Henry on guitar, Bambi Nutt on bass and backing vocals, and Heather Jane Anderson on drums and backing vocals. But on the first ten songs, we hear Mandy Reed on guitar and backing vocals and Heather Moritz on bass and backing vocals. Punkier than THE DONNAS, rawer than THE MUFFS or SLEATER KINNEY and more melodic than THE DISTILLERS, the ROTTEN APPLES will sound like a surprise to you and I guess they will look really fresh on stage as well. The European release of “Real Tuff” has four interesting bonus tracks, two of them being covers. First of all, we hear “Mad World” of TEARS FOR FEARS (we also know this song from the recent GARY JULES version, by the way!), which is followed by “You’ve Got My Number” by THE UNDERTONES. The other two bonus tracks are “Heart Candy” and “F.W.A.K” (a.k.a. “Fuck Without A Kiss”), which are both re-recorded with the recent line up. These bonus tracks make the total playing time of this album a little bit more acceptable, beause with its thirty five minutes, the album is not very long. But better a short good album, than a longer album with lots of useless fillers. ROTTEN APPLES don’t look good on a fruit bowl, but they sure sound fresh in your CD player. These girls are ‘real tuff’! [8 points] (Toine van Poorten)