Femme Fatality

Living in the midwest can be the last thing from glamourous, but St. Louis electro-trash party rock duo Femme Fatality would have you believing otherwise with their high energy shows and dark underground synth pop songs. Their debut album, Never Had A Daddy, released in 2004, along with their 2008 sophomore, One's Not Enough, reflect the gritty midwest nightlife and endless quest for fun.

Femme Fatality is the brainchild of the Palermo brothers, Alexander and Monanani, but they have the sound of a fully powered band. They've developed a cult following nationwide and a reputation for interacting with the crowd at shows, and its a conundrum to think that there are major label bands who are selling out arenas with nothing but mediocrity to produce while bands like Femme Fatality are pushing the envelope with fan favorites like "Octavia's Love Song", "Dirty Life", and "Lucky Lover". They have toured extensively over the past few years, gained plenty of exposure through their Myspace, and plenty of word of mouth. With their music available for listening on sites like last.fm, it's easy to be exposed and become a quick fan of their infectious grooves.

It'll be very interesting seeing where Femme Fatality takes their sound from here after gaining international exposure with their last 2 albums. They've become quite a household name for the music lover seeking underground bands that offer a fun, alluring escape from the stresses of daily life. Currently they are in the studio recording their third album in Los Angeles, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for fans via their Twitter, to which they've left tweets such as "Sooo many new songs in the works.... " and "Working on the new stage show, videos, photos, and recording A LOT of stuff. It feels good back be back doing all...". Whether intentional or not, it leaves enough updated information on the upcoming record to ignite plenty of anticipation for loyal fans. The album is expected to be released later this year, and if you're not listening to Femme Fatality by then, you're missing out on some pure trashy fun.
- Examiner.com

With a voice that's haunted by the spirit of Ian Curtis (at times) and hair that could kill, the music of Femme Fatality will whip the "clumsiest dweeb" into an Ultra-Sexy Dance Machine within the first measure - "Woo! Get your hands up!". The "new age" of Electro-Punk is reinforced by this duo's crafty disco arrangements. Upbeat rythms, one octave bass lines and intertwining synthetic melodies carry the lyrics whose subject matters tackle every aspect of being a socialite and all around creature of the night. Party-time carefree attitudes will now be driven to dance their pain away. - Electrozine

Sometimes the worst thing one can say about a band is that they get by on attitude. In the case of this year's best Live Dance/Electronic winners, Femme Fatality, it might be the best thing to say about them. What else but attitude can make a band start twenty minutes late at their showcase, leaving the audience to stare at a blank projection screen and suffer through Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" -- then make that same audience love them just by walking onstage to dis the venue where they've been assigned to play? What else but attitude can lead two young upstarts to air a very public beef with St. Louis scene stalwarts Riddle of Steel (see either group's STLPunk.com page for the very funny back-and-forth) and come out more popular than before?

Much like the Faint, Femme Fatality play retro synth-dance punk with a heavy visual element to their live show -- handheld red lights, film clips, etc. But unlike the Faint, Monanani Palermo and Octavia Leito know it's better not to act like they're playing all the instruments when it's obvious they're not, instead working the crowd into a frothy, rabid, dancing mess by flirting, threatening and goading.

Femme Fatality's critics could say the whole dance-punk thing is so over, could make fun of their Hives-like matching outfits or their perfectly styled hair. But to do so would miss the point. It's fun to dance, and Femme Fatality can instantly turn a crowd of shoe-gazing hipsters into an enthusiastic club crowd. It's hard to intellectualize why you might not like a band when you're moving your feet. -- Travis Petersen
- Riverfront Times

There is definitely nothing new about daring musical fusions and bizarre crossovers. However, as these stylistic ventures are -in most cases -intentionally “trendy” and calculated, both surprise effectand gag fall flat pretty quickly. A laudable exception are the American brothers, Alexander and Monanani Palermo.

Established in 2003, their unconventional mix of sinister electro, hip-hop and their hedonistic attitude towards sex, drugs and nightlife as its clear centre of discussion have already attracted a considerable fan community - not least of all as a result of their interactive live-shows which are also called up in the thousands on youtube.
While they are not without admiration by the critics, albeit being described – somewhat helplessly - as the new Beastie Boys - “One’s Not Enough”, the second album of these pleasur seeking brothers, has now appeared. Here, the concentrated, cheeky strength and the crude brazen wit come through moreviciously and more clearly than in their firstling; conventional, superficial electro-punk-sentiment of other formations.

“Come On, Come Out“ is a highly atmospheric collection of quotations reminiscent of the best 1980s synth-pop-tradition with pointed, punctuated hip-hop intonations; in contrast the title song “One’s Not Enough” strikes clearly harder sounds and riffs.
“Pretty Mess” has developed into a true hit - musical speed, which hits the raw, uncut charm of Femme Fatality on the mark and at the same time impressively documents that the Palermos not only draw the best out of all musical worlds but shout emphatically and straightforwardly into the world without consideration to convention.
While also unsparingly open, realistic and unpretentious in their basic message, just how colourful and multi-layered the duo is reveals itself in the surprising finale “Win, Lose, Die” - an almost cynically-biting statement about love and life and further proof that Femme Fatality’s priority is not the trend but the song, entirely without any stylistic blinkers .

“One’s Not Enough“ is a refreshing, impetuous work whose strength and unrivalled radicalism - isolated from any kind of cliché -will not miss its mark.
- Lit - Alternative Blogzine

With their premier release, Never Had a Daddy, the St. Louis based twosome Femme Fatality combine funky electro beats with cancerous Goth vocals. Throw in some sporadic moments of comedic white boy rapping, and it’s enough to elicit a full–out, fishnet–shredding dancing frenzy.
Not only does Femme Fatality make for the dancing, but with lyrics like, “I’m not the type of player who hollers ‘cause I want head / I’m the type of player who hollers cause I want her dead?” they ruthlessly indulge a “Johnny the Homicidal Maniac” sense of humor.
Many of the tracks on Never Had a Daddy deal with murdering girlfriends and groupies. (Hence the band’s name.) It’s one sick, inane, and egocentric little album. Don’t take Femme Fatality seriously, though. Just relax and allow the merciful force of satire to ethically satiate your twisted cravings.
- Discorder

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. Tonight is a great night to catch some live electro acts. Over at the Green Room, St-Louis duo Femme Fatality hit Montreal for a dose of dancefloor-erupting electro-pop. If you haven't heard of these guys before (they've opened for the Rapture and Felix Da Housecat and allegedly upstaged them both), Femme Fatality have been attracting the loudest, rowdiest, most drunkenly raucous crowd in their hometown since the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame opened up back in '84. Black outfits and eyeliner not mandatory, but suggested.
- Montreal Mirror

This St. Louis duo play frenzy-inducing electro music and look more indie rock than your mom, which I guess makes them and indie rock group. The music is definitely well done - not just a couple of kids fooling around with a computer. The pop sensibilities and synths invoke a very 80s feel, and it helps that the singer kind of sounds like that dude from the B-52s. I'm sure this would be a great act to see live. If you're a hipster, get into this band now so you can get a good 6 to 9 months of elitism in before everyone else knows about them. - CincinattiShows.com

Rock band Femme Fatality isn’t sure it ever fit into the local rock scene, but that’s not stopping the stylishly fab group from forging ahead.

Femme Fatality has a whole different thing going on, something described on its web site as “retro synth-dance punk.” That’s a whole lot of description there, and every bit is true.

“It’s just high-energy party music we take from more of a punk rock approach. There’s lots of drum machines and synthesizers. That’s our thing,” says the group’s Monanani Palermo, who handles vocals and synthesizers.

He’s joined by his brother Alexander Palermo (dig the stage names), also on vocals and synthesizers. Theilo Broveli helps fill out the live shows on guitars, synthesizers, and beat machine.

“There’s lot of tongue and cheek stuff going on with our music, a lot of partying and dancing and having fun,” says Palermo.

The band, influenced by acts such as Nine Inch Nails and the Beastie Boys, is set to release its second CD “One’s Not Enough” with a CD release party Saturday night at Creepy Crawl. The CD follows 2004’s “Never Had a Daddy.”

“This one is a lot more raw and faster, and has a distorted sense of that punk energy. We kind of did the old ‘80s sounding Pet Shop Boys thing on our first CD. On this one we wanted to do something representing our live show better,” says Palermo.

“A lot of people said they like ‘Never Had a Daddy’ but they wanted us live and screaming. They say we have so much more energy on the live show.”

The “One’s Not Enough” title carries a double meaning, beginning with the fact having only the one CD out there wasn’t cutting it. They needed a follow-up.

But the title also refers to the over-indulgent image the band portrays. “There’s something cool about throwing that whole lifestyle out there that nobody can really live, that darker side of life,” he says.

The new CD includes glammed-up songs such as “Bullet Train,” “Connections,” and “Lucky Lover.”

Palermo explains the four year gap between his band’s two CDs with “there were a lot of member changes and lots of busy things going on with life, and things got crazy. There were months when we weren’t doing much.”

During that time, his brother joined the band. “We’re on the same page now. We finally got a solid lineup.”

Tickets to the 8 p.m. Saturday concert at Creepy Crawl are $10-$12. Screaming Mechanical Brain, the Makeshift Gentlemen, and Old Skin are also on the bill. Get more information at www.myspace.com/femmefatality or www.creepycrawl.com
- Stltoday.com

May 26, 2004

If you're looking to get out of the light and heat, though, check out Femme Fatality: a chilly, campily entertaining mash-up of goth, new wave and hip-hop -- everything great about the '80s rolled into one convenient package. So straight-faced that they're hilarious, the two Femmes (dubiously named Octavio Leito and Monanani Palermo), are pale-skinned, dress in Euro-trash black and sound like a goth kid who smokes a pack a day singing along with his favorite Nintendo game.
Despite the boys' imposing look and puzzling, morbid lyrics ("S-T-L: home of the body bag," goes a line from "Baby Girl"), their old-school Casio beats are perfect club fodder, especially when they seem like they're poking fun at themselves. And they have a buzz, too; less than a year after their inception, they'll be opening for Seattle dirt-rockers the Catheters at the Hi-Pointe on May 25. Don't miss a chance to see Femme Fatality live; like most of the new wave of synth pop, the songs are only half of the story.
-NILES BARANOWSKI
- Riverfront Times

Then Femme Fatality—two black-haired, eyeliner-abusing firecrackers—walked out and summarily exploded into fits of dark, exhilarating, sexed-up Joy Division electro-synth pop. It was sensory (and sensual) overload. Sexy images of girls in knee-highs writhing on beds, working-stiff drones and dollar bills in flames streamed across a 6-by-8-foot video monitor as the duo shouted, flailed and smoldered. Singer Monanani Palermo prowled among the crowd to caress every hip-shaking, dreamy-eyed female. Their girlfriends, er, merch attendants, didn't seem to mind as they grabbed the hands of the recently fondled to dance in giddy ecstasy. "This is nothing," they explained later. "In Texas, the girls in the audience climb onstage and take their clothes off."
- Nashville Scene