Melding a purely 80’s alternative feel to a pulsing nineties club beat in a truly mesmerizing fashion, Intimidation Doll by PMKS is a song you can’t (and shouldn’t) turn away from. Clocking in around 5 minutes, Intimidation Doll rewards the steadfast listener with a song that rises, crashes, pulses, and swarms its way through a terrifying and all too true narrative of domestic assault.
The lyrics themselves mixed slightly under the beat and melody, the violence is hidden, metaphorically, from those who can’t be bothered to listen to lyrics – a running point in the PMKS repertoire. The pulsing is permeated every so often by an almost sensual moan, a sound that alerts parents that this song might not be appropriate for children (and without which the irony of media censorship’s approach to sex versus violence would remain unchecked).
Everything in Intimidation Doll is done on purpose. From the slow rise of the beat from a casual club feel into a chaotic and crashing crescendo – to the cyclical repetition of this form – to the soft and unsuspecting voices giving way to violence – it all perfectly models the cycles of abuse seen in domestic assault cases. PMKS pull no punches, asking the assaulter Does it make you feel like a man, to torture and destroy her – just because you can?.
Guilting not only the guilty, but the ignorant; Intimidation Doll seeks to make domestic assault everyone’s business. With a song as well constructed, incredibly conceived, and musically adept as Intimidation Doll, PMKS have every chance to make that happen.
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