The Pits as in bad times, shit luck, sweat stains… but also cherries. Penny & The Pits is the new project from Maritime stalwart Penelope Stevens. Perhaps best known as one third of the feverish art rock band Motherhood, Stevens is also a vital organizer, collaborator and visual artist in New Brunswick’s weird art and music underground.

Liquid Compactor, the debut statement from Penny & The Pits, is the result of Stevens putting their voice front and center for the first time. It’s a gritty, adventurous punk-rock album that processes feminist joy, rage and revenge. Across the album’s ten tracks, Stevens tears through a series of personal and collective traumas with a pulpy sense of exuberance. “I spent a lot of time making challenging work that would test both myself and the listener,” they reflect. “Now, I’m trying to make music that feels good; music that connects the heart to the body.”

That connection is felt immediately on lead single ‘Montenegro On Ice’, a rollicking song about the lure of hard memories and the lengths we go to avoid them. It’s a heady number with a buzz on–confidently skewing the line between vintage Deerhoof and present-tense St.Vincent. ‘Pool Party’, the second single, is an allegorical surf-punk banger about solidarity. It portrays a badass group of femmes who ‘crew up in the deep end’ and ‘shave their heads like Sinead’. This emblematic gathering is a crucial node in the album’s noir narrative. The songs on Liquid Compactor process pain into power through the use of transformative symbols. Water, and more broadly liquid, is a recurring element. The Bay Of Fundy, The Nashwaak River and Fredericton’s Lord Beaverbrook Hotel pool all appear as backdrops. Baths come to a boil. Period blood is summoned as a source of strength. Chuds from the local bar are haunted ‘til they sweat. Perpetrators are overtaken by the turning tide.

For every drop of darkness on Liquid Compactor, there are corresponding sparks of levity. This link between joy and pain is what gives the album its unmistakable fervor: it’s a celebration of healing cloaked as a gnarly romp. And this was Stevens’ hope from the outset: “When I was writing these songs, I imagined my closest femme & queer friends right up front, singing along. If I couldn't picture them rocking out, then I would set the idea aside. With this album, I'm trying to manifest the heaviness, the intensity and the joy of our lived experiences."

For the live iteration of the project, Stevens’ has pulled together an unholy trinity of badass femmes from across the Maritimes: Megumi Yoshida (Century Egg, Dog Day, Not You), Colleen Collins (Construction & Destruction) and Grace Stratton (Nightbummerz, Glitterclit). Get ready to crew up, rock out and take over: summer dates incoming.