CD Review of Baxter House’s Please Baxter, Don’t Hurt ‘Em

A lot of female-fronted punk or rock outfits rely too heavily on screaming or whining their way through an entire song about being screwed over by this guy or that. Not so with Baxter House’s Please Baxter, Don’t Hurt ‘Em. Instead, Rachel Mintz gives you all the attitude you can handle while, at the same time, she’s caressing your ear drums with a sweet melody. She’ll fool you into thinking she’s an angel and Satan herself all within the same number. Baxter House refuses to be put into a box with any one genre labeling, and instead breaks rules freely as they feel the desire, making Please Baxter, Don’t Hurt ‘Em a rather unique (and I’m rarely willing to use that term) compilation. Mintz almost deserves a spot in The Met for perhaps being the epitome of modern art, between her unconventional work and vinyl performance attire. Baxter House manages to avoid the expected in every way. No Food gives you a good range of what the band, and especially Rachel, can bring to the table, while you can listen to Mintz have an almost introspective conversation with herself in Dissociative Personality Disorder. When you throw in the rest of the EP, Fat Gross Cowboy, Black Skies, MKAO, and Gumdrop Heaven, what you get is an addictive assault on the senses. Imagine Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West all rolled into one, gathering you around in a circle for grown-up story time – that’s Please Baxter, Don’t Hurt ‘Em. Just give in. You don’t really have a choice.