Print, Reviews November 8, 2018

Album Review: Trash. – January

by Jed Murphy

Trash., in a way, has been a long time coming. Kayleigh Gutskey and Michael Olivier have been very active in the Colorado music scene for years, both together and separately. Once upon a time, they were Greeley punk heroes when they formed the socially conscious Nasty Bunch of Bitches. The Bitches could be pretty rough but the heart was there, and while Olivier eventually left the outfit, both Gutskey and Olivier established themselves as knowledgeable and competent musicians.

Since splitting ways, Gustkey carried on with the Bitches while working as a sound engineer and Olivier became the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Greeley rock music scene as an engineer at the University of Northern Colorado Recording Studio.

Now full circle, Olivier and Gutskey have released January, a four-track EP under the name Trash., a slow-burning rock n’ roll ode to the chick-rock of an era not so long ago.

Very much a studio project, the two producers teamed up and did everything themselves from top to bottom. “It’s much easier to work with just two people. We complement each other,” says Gustkey.

The instrumentation is sharp, the production is crisp, and Gustkey delivers vocally on each song with an emotional vulnerability that gives us a peek at where the songs came from. “By the time we got to mastering, it was apparent we were happy with what we had,” says Olivier.

And they should be, as January is more than just another release for these prolific musicians. There’s an organic quality to the music missing from some of their independent work, showing a compatibility between Gustkey and Olivier that can rarely happen in the studio.

Those used to Nasty Bunch of Bitches might be a touch disappointed as the level of rock is turned down from eleven to about a seven but the heart of rock is still there.

Love it or hate it, there is a lot to respect in Trash. Between Gustkey and Olivier, they are independently doing everything themselves, from the music itself to the videos they are releasing for each song. These aren’t your Bitches anymore, this is Trash.