A sequel to the 2004 Ace CD
Girls with Guitars, this likewise focuses on guitar-oriented, girl-sung 1960s rock from the '60s, though to be technical one 1970 cut sneaks in. These aren't all self-contained female groups who played their own instruments (although a few of them are); in fact, a number of these artists didn't play their own music, and some of them were solo acts, not bands. The common factor, however, is that all of them did play rougher, more guitar-heavy rock than the norm for woman rockers of the era. There's a fairly narrow pool of discs to choose from when you're making an anthology like this (though not as narrow as many people realize), which makes it hard if not impossible to make an "all killer no filler" compilation. That's how it goes with
Destroy That Boy! More Girls with Guitars, which is usually fun, and occasionally very good, but often more interesting for historical oddity and energy than for the quality of the songs or performers. Still, there are some genuinely stand-out tracks here, none more so than
Beverley Jones' "Hear You Talking," which is average Merseybeat musically, but has a vocal that's incredibly vicious by 1964 standards, and a chorus ("I'll cut you dead...if I hear you talking about her") that's downright gangsta in this company. Also very good is
Sharon Tandy's "Hold On," justly hailed as a first-rate mod rocker long before its appearance on this compilation, and
Ann-Margret's unlikely (and mighty strange) psychedelic
Lee Hazlewood-written and produced 1968 rarity "You Turned My Head Around." Nothing else on the CD galvanizes like these three items, but it does at least present a wide range, from Merseybeat (including Liverpool's self-contained
Liverbirds) and
Beatles novelties to
She Trinity's "He Fought the Law" (reportedly the inspiration for
the Clash's "I Fought the Law" cover, according to the liner notes); a folk-rocker co-written by
Erik Darling of
the Rooftop Singers (Project X's "Don't You Think It's Fine"); and a rocking
Donovan song that Donovan himself never put on his records (
Karen Verros' "You Just Gotta Know My Mind"). Also neat is
the Girls' previously unreleased "Here I Am in Love Again," with backing by
the Beau Brummels, which was written and produced by
Sly Stone, even if the vocals are pretty shaky.
