The dream of the 90s is alive in Ugli. The Philly four-piece’s latest EP, Girldick., throbs with filthy bass lines, fuzzy guitars, and shimmers of distortion that borrow generously from Bleach-era Nirvana and their musical contemporaries. In five quick hits, Ugli take advantage of all the space that rock music can provide for contradiction and pain. But while the grunge musicians of the past famously liked their street drugs, especially heroin and weed, Ugli’s tracks are fueled by another substance: spiro, short for spironolactone, a prescription pharmaceutical whose uses include blocking testosterone receptors. Singer Dylyn Durante explores varying contours of melancholy and alienation from a transfemme perspective.
On the track “Spiro.,” she centers that drug. Of all the hormone blockers that can be prescribed to support feminine medical transition, spironolactone is the most common—and it’s famously punishing when taken at dosages large enough for that therapeutic purpose. Durante bemoans spiro’s pronounced side effects—for starters, intense dizzy spells as well as significant loss of muscle and sex drive. “Do I look dainty yet?” she screams at the song’s breakdown. “Do I look femme / Do I look dainty yet / Time for more pills again.” At the end, she wails with escalating intensity, “I take spiro / I take spiro / I take spiro / God, I hate spiro.” But in a one-size-fits-all medical system assailed by fascists working to ban gender-affirming health care, the hell demon that is spiro is an often inevitable component of medical transition. Quitting isn’t an option.
As grueling as transition can be, though, that pursuit of selfhood comes with wisdom and freedom. On “Flatsoda.” Durante talks about knowing when it’s time to let go, while “Crybabi.” pairs defiant pop-punk flourishes with descriptions of a lonely wistfulness that guides her to a Garden of Eden where she can be gay and do crimes. Against an anthemic push-pull of gritty guitar, she exalts, “Yeah / Yeah / I don’t want to go home.” Girldick. is over too soon, but it embodies an all-too-timely sense of confusion, beauty, and mayhem. It’s everything you could hope for in a summer soundtrack that charges past trans remembrance straight to trans rage.
Ugli’s Girldick. (self-released) is available through Bandcamp.