Neo Boys

Said to be Portland's first all-female band, the Neo Boys' sound was as defined by that city's lippy and rough-hewn punk stalwarts like the Wipers as it was jangly vagrants like the Raincoats and speed demons like the Buzzcocks.



During their five years, they went from being proud rock primitivists to carving out a nook in the alt cannon that was a little more nuanced and gentle, that leaned into rumpled indie. At moments, their guitar work sounds like its possessed by Johnny Marr; it's melancholically bright and clear-eyed, a rhythm-and-lead pas de deux.

KT Kincaid, the lead vocalist, has a knack for skipping across the instrumentals in a way that further lightens the impact of all their stuff, too, from the more noodly to the clattery to the spasmodic.