Originally, Lo-Hi was a duo: Boss Hog drummer Hollis Queens was the vocalist and played guitar while Martin Owens, formerly of Speedball Baby handled the drums. For Say It More, their second release, the group was augmented by guitarist Jens Jurgenson (also of Boss Hog), and bassist Justin Holub. Lo-Hi don't fall too far from the Boss Hog tree, though they lace their funky garage rock with a pinch of riot grrl angst and some electronic trimmings, there's nothing on the album that screams of independence from the side-project status that the band could easily be rushed into. In spite of the addition of Holub and Jurgenson, Say it More is dominated by guitar and drums, and the stripped-down feel would benefit from some added density.
Lo-Hi have an ability to swing between styles fairly easily, and manage to squeeze some '80s keyboard pop, '60s bubblegum, and early '90s alt-rock into Say It More, but, in stretching themselves, the quartet fail to inject these styles with enough of a singular voice, and often end up with strains of Bikini Kill, L7, or, most often, Sleater Kinney saturating the music too deeply. Queens belts out, with slight vibrato, lyrics that are often either dirty rock clichés ("I don't mind if I have to crawl around because I'm down in the dirt where I know it hurts") or equally forgettable attempts at playful subject matter that fall flat ("Little Plant" consists of a one-sided conversation between Queens and a houseplant that tries simplistically to make a larger social statement).
Say It More is a danceable, high-energy album that will serve well the denizens of the new school of aggressive female rock. But, for those of you whose ear for the genre is a bit more discriminating, Lo-Fi won't be likely to make much of an impression.
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