Portions for Foxes: Killola

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

I like songs that start with a bang. Just in this series, recently, I could mention the Breeders' Safari or Headrush by Hot Springs. This one does something like that, leading off with the sound of a fuse burning, then a guitar riff, then the punch.

This Is the Way the World Ends was the lead-off song on Killola's 2008 record I Am the Messer - one given away for free on the Internet as part of a promotion, so it's how a lot of people were introduced to this band. (I hope they liked it. I did.)

This is yet another bad-love song, apocalyptic division. It is big and loud and overly emotional - I don't know if this is a break-up, exactly, but something's not right here, and the singer is panicking, going bigger and bigger to try to save this.

Truth hurts, and so do I...
I call your name in the middle of the night.

This is rock and roll - loud and immediate and personal and pushy. Singer Lisa Rieffel has an impressive set of pipes here, and belts this song out the way it deserves to be belted - it's a song crying out and demanding, and Rieffel can push it just as hard as it needs to go.

She's supported by a great tight band, too - there's some wonderful rolling drumwork around the two-minute mark, and the whole thing rises to a great, nihilistic, loud crescendo at the very end.

Three and a half minutes. Loud. Pushy. Demanding. This is how the world ends - with a bang.