Rock Chicks Arcade Melée

Here at Noisey, we love female rockers. We love listening to them and looking at them and smelling their hair, and the other two senses when that’s appropriate. In the past few years, we’ve seen an astonishing influx in girl rocking, it sometimes almost seems like there are too many to keep track of. It’s hard to tell which ones are the best. They’re all just so awesome, we just want them to form one big madrigal choir. Either that or tear each other to smithereens in an arena of death. Yeah, that.

WELCOME TO THE ESTRODOME. The video game that we just made up where rock stars with two X’s branded on their chromosomes are pitted against one another in a speculative 8-bit battle royale to the death. It’s Super Smash Sisters, with one bitchin’ soundtrack full of bitch-slappin’ rock-bandin’ beauties. The only rules are no punching below the ovaries and don’t be late for soundcheck. Let the maims begin.

Krauss: Sleigh Bells’ girl-half bounces around the stage like a Brazilian capoeira dance-fighter with a set of bangs that could stop a bullet and a voice that could turn an oak tree into mulch.
Special Combo Move: The Fishnet Kick—A roundhouse that ensnares opponents in sexy leggings.

Mosshart: Of The Kills and The Dead Weather, she is rock’s fair-faced Angel of Death. Don’t look to deeply into her eyes unless you want to review every sin you ever committed.
Special Combo Move: Killing you Dead—Smearing lamb’s blood on the door won’t stop the Moss from getting in.

Noisey Pick: Mosshart gives Krauss the last goodbye by slurping her soul through a silly straw.

Clark: Otherwise known as St. Vincent, she is David Byrne’s Anointed One, charged with bearing the Torch of Awesome and setting your face on fire with it. Her disarming exterior is matched only by her box of matches, which she will use to set your face on fire.
Special Combo Move: Setting Your Face On Fire—Her guitar will hose you with flame.

Cosentino: Best Coast’s frontwoman is the state of California’s Anointed One, charged with getting tourists to want to come to the beach and be carefree and stuff.
Special Combo Move: The Werebear—At high-tide, she transform into the bear on the California state flag.

Noisey Pick: Annie catches Bethany off-guard while she’s thinking about the ocean, and sets her face on fire.

Grimes: Born Claire Boucher, you can just imagine this grimy little sprite buzzing through an enchanted forest, giving unicorns the finger and kicking leprechauns in the dick.
Special Combo Move: Grime Dust—It’s like fairy dust, except instead of fairy dust, it’s pepper spray.

Nadezhda: Beneath the yellow balaclava of the infamous Pussy Riot is this nigh-unpronounceable mouthpiece of free speech and heroine to hooligans everywhere, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. She’s currently doing time in a Russian prison for hooliganism. She’s currently doing time. In a Russian prison. For hooliganism.
Special Combo Move: Hooliganism—It’s what she’s currently doing time in a Russian prison for.

Noisey Pick: Tolokonnikova. Time. Russian prison. Hooliganism.

James: She’s the sweet voice of electronic duo Purity Ring, and she’s from America’s hat, Canada. That automatically makes her a wilderness-ready survivor, able to kill a moose with a single “Eh?” Also, poutine is delicious.
Special Combo Move: Power Ring of Purity—This makes her invulnerable to attack from any Jonas Brother.

Winston: She’s a pint-size of pure punishment, wielding a tambourine with Jesus Christ’s face on it and a she-devil voice that could strip the paint off, uh, something freshly painted, and with several coats. Do not underestimate this one. She will strangle you with her hair.
Special Combo Move: Jesus Tambourine Jangle—She lures you in with the jangling. Into her hair. Then strangles you with it.

Noisey Pick: Winston. She ain’t no Jonas

Goodman: You may know her from Vivian Girls or La Sera, or from her nickname “Kickball Katy.” The origin of that nickname she describes herself in this Noisey article, and it is a very dark, shocking, ass-kickingly horrifying story.
Special Combo Move: Kickballin’—A kickball might seem bouncy and innocent, until it’s flying at your mouth at the speed of sound.

Coffman, Dekle & Bell: The three sirens of Dirty Projectors. They come as a package, like the Ice Climbers in Super Smash Bros., or Mexican Midget Wrestlers. Noisey Editor Sasha Hecht has theorized that Dave Longstreth keeps them locked in a dungeon, training them to be cunning and lethal, sparing not the whip.
Special Combo Move: Forbidden Harmony—They form an impossible chord with their voices that reverbs so hard, your head explodes.

Noisey Pick: Goodman. Launches a perfectly-placed kickball that pinballs off each of the Dirty Dames’ harmony horns. Game over.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? Post in the comment section below which of your favorite chick rockers you’d like to see duke it out in the Estrodome.

@theringadingkid