“Kill Bill,” SZA’s hit song inspired by the movies of the same name, was not supposed to her biggest hit single. It was just an album track, but its popularity on streaming convinced her label to release it as a proper single, the fifth from the album SOS. It then topped multiple US charts and topped a few other national charts as well.
The Dissociates are a California punk band who very much play in classic SoCal punk style, albeit with perhaps a little more chops. They debuted in 2023 with some singles and put out their first album in 2024. Now they’ve covered “Kill Bill.”
The original begins with with a distorted – and disorienting – sample of a synthesizer, which is soon joined by boom bap esque drums and bass, and SZA’s vocals. In the opening of The Dissociates version, the unusual intro is reference, even though it begins with softly strummed guitar. There is a keyboard or something that, like the original song, sounds vaguely like a flute, but it’s a little less out of tune.
And the tempo of the verse is pretty similar to the original, even though the sound of the band is much closer to rock than R&B. It’s in the chorus that the “punk” shows up, with distortion kicking in. Lead vocalist Brie Marie sings the song with less affectation than SZA but also mostly avoids the classic California punk whine. In the second verse the band have fun with the changing rhythm of the original, which uses multiple drum machines to create its unusual drum pattern. Here, instead, the rhythm section switch up time here and there.
To fully makeover the song as a rock song – and perhaps a little more classically rock than California punk – there is an extended guitar solo that doesn’t sound remotely punk. So think of it, then, as somewhere between one of those classic punk covers and a more conventional rock cover. Regardless, it’s fun:
