REVIEW: Team Dresch - Furthermore
To say that TEAM DRESCH have been away for three decades wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Not long after the band broke up at the end of the 90s, Kaia Wilson and Melissa York would go on to form THE BUTCHIES for a time, releasing four albums under the moniker. Around the time of their fourth and final LP, Make Yr Life, Wilson and York would perform with TEAM DRESCH once again, as they have done for over twenty years now. In that time, they’d released the occasional single (including quite a nice cover of ELLIOTT SMITH’s St. Ide’s Heaven). So while they’ve never really gone away, it’s clear that something had to give at some point. In an interview, Donna Dresch mentioned that out of nowhere, at a vegan restaurant in California, Jody Bleyle flipped over a table and exclaimed “I’m not playing another show until we have a new album!”
So here we are, Furthermore is the first full-length studio album from TEAM DRESCH since 1996’s Captain, My Captain. Keep in mind, this is a band who managed to help define what the Queercore movement even entails with just two albums - and it’s a movement that has continued to evolve over those three decades (as has the riot grrrl that it often overlaps with). The past decade has provided acts like DAZEY & THE SCOUTS, CONTROL TOP and THE HIRS COLLECTIVE, whose infectious energy and in-your-face politics feel like a natural evolution of what TEAM DRESCH were doing on songs like I’m Illegal and Remember Who You Are. With that in mind, one has to wonder what a modern TEAM DRESCH would sound like.
Opener and first single One Song answers some of these questions. It’s a little more anthemic and indie-tinged, almost like some more recent offerings from a group like SLEATER-KINNEY. More emphasis on the occasional guitar effect in the verses, ramping it up in the chorus with a rocking lead melody and performances all around - having two drummers this time around certainly packs more of a punch. The lyrics here are meant as a letter to the group’s past selves - though judging from the music video, it could equally be applicable to young people in the present. The chorus, beginning with “they say there’s danger in the night kitchen, but it’s a dreamland, and it’s for all of us” is a reference to the book “In the Night Kitchen”, by queer author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who the band describe as some who could create “magical dreamlands”. With the context of the book being banned, this could easily be seen as a metaphor for queer escapism. It conjures images of The Pink Opaque or Camp Miasma in the works of Jane Schoenbrun, these idyllic settings for queer people to imagine themselves in, to imagine a universe where our identities aren’t a point of contention - it’s a dreamland, and it’s for all of us.
One Song is a fairly optimistic and nostalgic opener, which is fine. It’s their first album opener in thirty years, after all. Growing Underground on the other hand is a direct response to the current moment. The second track on their first album, Personal Best was called Hate the Christian Right, and this feels like a spiritual successor to that song in many ways. The band don’t mince words here - you don’t get any less vague than “you are terror, you are the terrorists” and “our love offends you, fuck you, our bodies are a threat to you”. The chorus ends with the line “we’ve always been here”, and there’s something so deeply resonant about this in a time where being openly queer can feel all the more difficult with each passing year. Hearing these words can feel reassuring and empowering. We’re still here, and we’re not going away either. Accompanied by a commanding and imperative lead guitar melody and explosive outro, this is one for the ages. It’s an extremely important song, not only within the group’s discography, but it’s also a significant piece of queercore.
Elsewhere on the album we have songs like (Where Do) I Belong appears to be about struggling to understand identity, specifically gender identity with lines like “I was a boy, then I was a girl, then I was a boy [...] you are not anything, you are worse than nothing” seeming to be referring to the ensuing self-hatred that so many queer people can relate to with the feeling of being unable to work everything out. One has to wonder if the trans-coded lyrics can be attributed to drummer Marcéo Martinez, who came out as trans-masc around the time the group’s early discography was reissued. He mentions in an interview that if his younger self could see what TEAM DRESCH would become after thirty years that he’d be “for sure stoked to see a trans-masc drummer”. Perhaps in some way this song is meant as a sort of token of solidarity with him, and there’s something really beautiful about that.
The album closer here, Protectors, ends the album in a similar way to how it started, feeling like a love letter to the younger generation. When Kaia sings “let them be, leave them the fuck alone, this is their home”, it feels like she’s singing to younger queer people - hence the title. It’s done over a slow, fuzzy riff, with some absolutely gorgeous tremolo-picked guitars in the second chorus. Each snare hit feels so impactful too, and when you hear them played in the outro under “if you don’t leave us now, we’re gonna kick you out”, it works to greater effect.
Once again, TEAM DRESCH end an album with a clear statement - they see us, the queer audience who’ve been following them for thirty years, all of us with our own struggles, yet somehow united by one core unshakable part of our identities. Furthermore is an album that didn’t necessarily need to happen. The group had been touring for twenty years without a new album, so it was never a guarantee. But we need music like this more than ever, and while parts of the album are a little shaky at points, an album like this doesn’t need to be entirely made up of memorable songs to prove its point - and if they’ve managed to unite queer punks all over again in the process, it’s more than worth it.
Score: 8/10
Furthermore will be released on 18th September 2026 via Jealous Butcher Records.
Words: Noise Leonard
Photos: Twylo Landey
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