Pennyroyal

Twin Cities Critics Tally 2013: Pennyroyal "Baby I'm Against It" - Honorable Mention "Few bands survive “second album syndrome” as successfully as Pennyroyal has. Baby I’m Against It is as near a perfect album as we’re going to get this year, folks. The second side may stumble from the smooth pacing of the first, but we admit we can’t find another way to sequence the album’s twelve indispensable tracks. Some songs are rounded out by lyrical repetition (Consider another controversial Lou Reed quote: “I don’t mind a repetitive chorus; I mind repetitive verse. I mean, it’s the same amount of space.”) but maybe brevity is best. Even “Record Machine,” in all its awesomeness, leaves us wanting just a little more. These are all little things, the sort of flaws that make an album its own special world you can get lost in for a half hour. This is undeniably the best new album a band has brought into the shop this year." - Hymie's Vintage Records “It’s almost impossible to imagine Places as an album, simply because five or six more songs this good seems like an impossible dream. If this were an album it would be at the top of the top 10 list we started posting on Monday. This is our favorite local release of 2012." - Hymie's Vintage Records Pennyroyal Debut Album "Sad Face Glad Face" - "Best Local Albums (So Far)" 2011 - Star Tribune / Vita.MN "Not only is Pennyroyal one of the best new local bands you probably haven't heard, but it also has one of the best stories you'll ever hear about how two people met to form a band. Angie Oase, the group's blonde mohawk-haired frontwoman, was playing solo sets around town in 2009 when she started covering a song called "Sarah," by an obscure Seattle songwriter named Ethan Rutherford. She got his CD from a friend of a friend. As Rutherford quipped, "My mom and sister were the only other two people who'd heard it." Lo and behold, one night while Oase performed the song at Anodyne coffee shop in south Minneapolis, there sat a flabbergasted Rutherford, who had just relocated here to attend grad school at the University of Minnesota. Oase, too, was a transplant, having moved from Minot, N.D., to attend Macalester College. "It was one of those things where you go, 'What are the chances?'" Rutherford said. "We had to do something together after that." Finding each other across thousands of miles was just the start. Pennyroyal would go on to bridge a cross-section of musical influences to become a band that's hard to peg but easy to appreciate -- part Pretenders-style sass, part Velvet Underground-ian drone, part modern alt-twang. Rutherford, the guitarist and part-time singer, is the Velvets nut in the group. Oase (pronounced like "ohs") grew up on old-school country and channels Patsy Cline better than a lot of pure-twang singers -- never mind that she looks as if she should be in a riot-grrrl act or Wendy O. Williams tribute band. Bassist Bill Hoben and drummer Jake Mohan are metalheads who also play in an instrumental hard-rock band, Wizard Fight. These seemingly disparate influences were part of what made Pennyroyal's 2010 debut album, "Sad Face/Glad Face," such an interesting listen. Now, though, the quartet sounds much more coalesced and solidified on its follow-up EP, "Places," which it will promote Friday at Cause Spirits & Soundbar. "A lot of the songs on our first album we learned while we were still getting to know each other, personally and musically," Oase recalled before a rehearsal session last week. Soft-spoken and quick to laugh, the 28-year-old singer now knows her bandmates well enough for them to brag about her having her high-school basketball team's record for most three-pointers in a season. When it's suggested a yearbook be dug up for confirmation, she shot down the idea. "You'll see why I have a mohawk," she cracked. "I've always had the worst haircuts." The visual and emotional focal point of Pennyroyal, Oase was dealing with conflicted feelings about moving to a big city and coming out as a lesbian when the band formed. Those feelings of alienation could be heard throughout the debut and are especially prominent in the newer, Spoon-like gem, "Minot." In it, she sings, "A Minot of broken strings / A Minot of lost endings / I untie myself of these things." "Minot" was originally released as a benefit single last summer when flooding ravaged Oase's hometown. It then became the basis for "Places," a five-song collection referencing different towns. "Mad City" is based on a trip to Madison, Wis., where a gig unknowingly got canceled. "New York Kids" riffs on the pursuit of coolness around Brooklyn. Cleveland and New Orleans are the EP's other two stops. While the "city" songs were all written coincidentally, Oase sees one loose thematic tie: "There's a sense of escapism in them, of wanting to be somewhere else," she said. Pennyroyal appears quite content staying put in Minneapolis in the coming months. Other upcoming gigs include a May 13 in-store at Hymie's Records (3 p.m.) and a May 18 slot during the 331 Club's Art-a-Whirl bash. One reason for putting out the EP now was to round out all these set lists. Ironically, one song the band never includes in its sets is "Sarah," the one that originally brought its leaders together. "We've tried it, but it just doesn't work," Oase said. Rutherford, who's married (to a woman not named Sarah), laughingly added, "I've moved on anyway." -Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune / Vita.MN review by warren wills.. From this point forward the night became a little more conventional, but it isn't exactly the term I'd use to describe Pennyroyal, the night's next performer. Headed by the bleach blond fro-hawked Angie Oase, the band sports not one but two harmonica players. What intrigued me most about their performance was the versatility and eclecticism of genre hopping they brought with them to the stage. One song sounds like a sad Irish ballad, the next sounds like folk, blues and rock, the next sounds more like a modern take on punk or indie rock, and the next has more of an Americana vibe; it was with this diverse palate that Pennyroyal drew the largest crowd of the evening to the small corner of the bar and provided the longest set as well. A distinct highlight of the evening took place about halfway through their set as the projectionist happened to put up a documentary about the Arctic which matched the lyrics they were singing (about making it through the winter and ice, etc.), then added further intrigue by playing the short film in reverse. Pennyroyal turned out to be the perfect bridge between the art and presentation of Dreamland Faces and the blues/psychedelia of Vampire Hands. "Not only is Pennyroyal one of the best new local bands you probably haven't heard, but it also has one of the best stories you'll ever hear about how two people met to form a band.." - Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune