Remind me never to trust Morrissey for a musical recommendation. His infatuation with the New York Dolls notwithstanding, I have to wonder about him. He pulled San Antonio's Girl in a Coma onto his most recent tour when he kicked Kristeen Young off, which is quite the compliment to the three ladies in Girl in A Coma. But the band is just whelming. Not bad, but certainly not groundbreaking. Nina Diaz has a big thick voice that the pop punk/60s girl groups/80s trash (and one very long folkie ?!?) songs just don’t do enough justice for. She can do it all—sultry, falsetto a al Moz, plaintive, and just plain bold.  The songs aren't an amalgamation of these eras, but more like slices of the songs they're emulating. Some songs are the Smiths, some are Joy Division, some are the Ronettes, others just bubblegum punk.  Once they settle on a sound and an era and stop wearing their influences openly to the point of sounding like a sum of their parts, they can focus on making music to give even more buoyancy to Nina's already amazing voice. They're still young, they've got plenty of time.  And they've got Morrissey and Joan Jett on their side.

www.girlinacoma.com

www.blackheart.com/artists/girl-in-a-coma/news.html

www.myspace.com/girlsinacoma