Penny & The Pits’ debut, Liquid Compactor, is a 27-minute surge of surf-punk grit and shared catharsis, forged in New Brunswick’s DIY underbelly and fronted—at last—by Motherhood‘s Penelope Stevens’ own voice. The project’s name hints at both hardship and the flash of sweetness you can still bite into and that tension between joy and fury defines everything that follows.
Stevens wrote to one clear test: if they couldn’t picture their “closest femme & queer friends right up front, singing along,” the song went in the bin. Opener ‘Montenegro on Ice’ proves why it survived. A woozy shuffle slides in like a warped Breeders 7-inch, while Stevens sings of risk and repetition “Can’t take my own advice / Undervalued, not overpriced / Left to my own devices / I’ll succumb to my vices: Dice and exercise, Montenegro on Ice”
Straight away, Megumi Yoshida (Century Egg), Colleen Collins (Construction & Destruction) and Grace Stratton (Nightbummerz, Glitterclit) snap into one heartbeat, and the record’s liquid metaphor arc begins: ice now, steam later.
The temperature shoots right up on ‘Pool Party’. The sky’s gone vermilion, the water a deep phthalo, and there’s a strict door policy: no creeps, no Coppertone. Stevens spits, “We suck the starch in saltwater, we bring the bath to a boil… we’ve got a liquid compactor,” before the whole gang piles in “We shave our heads like Sinéad” and “we’re on surfari to stay!” Spring-reverb twang and rolling toms tip the hat to Brian Wilson, but this isn’t beach-towel nostalgia; it’s a chlorinated war-cry with the sun in its eyes.
‘Sweat’ clicks in—one-two-three—and bolts through hardcore riffs, slamming the brakes for whispered taunts: “We’re hanging from the tree limbs in your front yard like a bat.” It’s matched later by ‘Headcrusher,’ a stop-start blitz that opens with a half-playful, half-menacing Kids in the Hall wink—“I’m crushing your head!” From there Stevens unloads: “I will turn your blue eyes brown… melt you down… strip for parts and crush you like the heads on CBC,” finally spitting, “Stuff your sorrys in a sack so they can keep you company.” The offender’s remorse gets packed into that sack and shoved seaward, one more body for the lurking liquid compactor beneath the deep end.
When the pace drops, it’s only to coil tighter. ‘Thick Black Gloves’ trudges on tar-thick chords, chanting “Door through a door through a door,” then flips to a gospel-tinted dare: “There’s power in the blood—wade on in and you can see what it does.” ‘Self Defence’ begins as a hush, a single strum and hum, before blooming into violent catharsis: “Protruding from a clenching fist—present, tense, self defence.” ‘Halfway Home (demo)’ leaves its cassette hiss uncovered, as though you’ve found the tape in an old glove box on the Fundy shore.
The mid-section brightens without softening. ‘Eutychus’ rides a grunge-pop back-beat, half-time cymbals splashing like Sleater-Kinney washing against Veruca Salt‘s lyricism as Stevens scratches at the itch: “Digging in, tick in my skin thick, cannot see me suffer.” ‘Placeholder’ then flashes the record’s purest pop hook, “My baby’s got hands for feet, / my baby’s got summer teeth”, and proof this crew can sparkle without dulling the bite.
Water imagery binds everything here: it’s either frozen, boiling, or draining away. Closing cut ‘Ward of the Watershed’ stretches out, hiding its menace under layered harmonies, like the undertow of deep open lakes. It finally ebbs to a grainy organ line, thin amp white noise, and Stevens’ final plea—“Lead me to water, let me wade in.”
Liquid Compactor sharpens punk to a fine point with feminist rage and joy. Hooks hit first time yet stay barbed enough to draw blood later and Stevens claims the centre with a salt-bitten confidence that bends surf-rock vibes into rallying cries, not a tiki-bar jukebox. Above all, though, this record dares you to act not just stand by: Shave your head, dive in the deep end, and shout yourself raw:
“I am not afraid of them, then or now or whenever the thought tries to enter in, I am not afraid of them”.
‘Liquid Compactor’ is out 27th June via Forward Music
