The Gender-Flipped Cock-Rock of Seattle’s Thunderpussy has the Power to Save Rock and Roll

Cynics who thought that rock died weren't betting on the new pussy paradigm. An all-woman quartet birthed in 2014 from Seattle's foggy depths, Thunderpussy isn't a girl band, but a rock band, snarling and jumping and pulsing with timeless leather bravado.

Just as Elvis as Iggy, as classic rock as it is Delta blues, Thunderpussy sucks up all of rock music's most romantic iterations and spits out a blood-tinged sex potion. All four of these women are lifelong musicians, and it shows. Drummer Ruby Dunphy's loose, effortless fills betray her Cornish jazz training, while guitarist Whitney Petty will make you reconsider having used the word "shred" to describe any other guitar player—and the span of bassist Leah Julius' vocabulary is evidenced by her as playing for Seattle soul-punk outfit Sundries.

Then, of course, there's Molly Sides.

The frontwoman is most often seen folded back in half on the floor with a microphone gathering her sweat and breath. Though Thunderpussy's fierce, label-averse independence has prevented them from starting work on a debut LP until this past September, the band's live shows have built a cult following.

Everywhere Thunderpussy plays turns into a dank, sweaty basement—whether it's actually a basement or a sunny stage at Sasquatch.

"To see live performance is to be reminded that we are alive," says Sides. "We stand, breathe, laugh, drink, scream, fall over, get up, move on. Life performance is a path to enlightenment."

Onstage, Sides ironically finds zen within pure, muscular expression—which is, itself, something of a manifesto to the virtues of rock and roll. Sides writhes sexily in all sequins, ducks underneath Petty's legs and howls, stage dives, and generally loses her mind, inviting the audience to do the same— it's like if KISS had sex with FIDLAR and their child was born covered in gold glitter.

Yes, Thunderpussy is indebted to several obvious spirit guides, with Sleater-Kinney the most obvious among them, but to reduce them to SK's PNW glam rock revivalist heir is too easy. They aren't just the next thing; they're the new thing.

Here is your new rock 'n' roll order, one united in worship of the Divine Feminine. Leave the fate of rock and roll in these four humans' hands; like Sides sings in the band's first single, "No Heaven," "You don't have to worry 'bout heaven no more."

Thunderpussy plays Dante's, 350 W Burnside St., with Cave Clove, on Saturday, July 8. 9 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.