When the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs first appeared on the indie rock scene, much was made of their stylistic connections to the New York no wave scene of the late 1970s, which were tenuous at best and based mostly on the fact that at some angles,
Karen O looks kinda sorta like
Lydia Lunch a little bit, maybe. As a result, even when more recent bands have exhibited a notable no wave influence --
Deerhoof, for example -- many critics have resisted using the tag. But in the case of
Child Bite, echoes of acts like
DNA and
James Chance & the Contortions are so clear that it's hard not to make the comparison.
Child Bite aren't merely aping the sounds of flinty noise bands past, but synthesizing several different strains of noise into something new. At times the influences are blatantly obvious: "Gudavia" sounds like nothing so much as an atypically funky track by San Francisco noise-rock godfathers
the Residents, complete with their trademark squelchy synth sounds and weirdly childlike melodies, and there are sections of the closing "Body Buddies" that recall vintage
Pere Ubu, right down to an uncanny re-creation of
David Thomas' hiccuppy vocals. But most of the time,
Child Bite fuse their more outré tendencies to rubbery, muscular new wave funk rhythms somewhere between
Gang of Four and
Pylon, creating a tougher-sounding and less shamefully retro version of the contemporary new wave revival on tracks like the howling "Don't Do What Your Body Tells You to Do" and the hugely danceable first single "I Like Friends."