Album Review

Girls Names – The New Life

• 31st Jan 2013

Belfast based Girls Names were lauded by music journo’s after the release of their first album, ‘Dead To Me’ in 2011. Their latest record, ‘The New Life’, see’s the band put ‘Dead To Me’ to bed, with dark tones, erie psychedelic effects and mournful vocals. The record begins with ‘Portraits’, a short intro melody with a trippy church organ sound that sets the scene for an album which pulls us through ghostlike memories on what often feels like a multi-dimensional scale. Melting seamlessly into lead single ‘Pittura Infamante’, a dark baseline kicks in with a soaring guitar hum that could as easily have come straight from Interpol or The Smiths as it could a poltergeist in the rafters. The punchy drums and retro sounding clanging on the guitar make way for Cathal Cully’s gothic shoegaze vocal. As the record moves forwards into the electrifying ‘Drawing Lines’, the listener is drawn into what feels like the middle of a dark 1960’s murder mystery.

Throughout ‘The New Life’, punchy and driving yet repetitive rhythm contrasts with slower, echoing vocals, creating a disorientating dynamic that sucks the listener in and ensures that no one can listen just a single song alone. ‘Hypnotic Regression’ employs a call and response effect between the guitars and vocal, layering whispers atop distorted flange-heavy electronic sounds among surprisingly upbeat, 80’s pop style riffs. The track has a depth which builds throughout the record, while each instrument retains an individuality, in which the listener can imagine the sounds coming from different characters in a twisted, other-worldly love story. ‘Notion’ stands out as having a pop-like melody in the vocal part, almost as though a classic ballad has been played on the wrong speed. However, the spacey electronic musings and clangy guitars ensure that no one could immediately recognize ‘The New Life’ as a pop record. Indeed, throughout the album, any pop sensibility that trickles through is made to seem sinister by the hypnotic repetitiveness of the bass and drums and uncomfortable tones that drip throughout.

‘Projektions’ sounds like waking up from a dream, but only plunges the listener back into a cold pool of surreality. Beginning with electronic percussion that feels like a ball bouncing up and down inside the listener’s brain, Girls Names’ signature twangy riffs combined with numbing vocals echo from a ‘surf-punk’ root, but send previous expectations of the band surfing off into the abyss. Gothic, weird, disorientating and physically affecting can be loosely used to describe this record; as could dream-like, other worldly and mesmerizing. What the band make clear however, is that ‘The New Life’ is intended to defy genre and act as one single entity. There’s a feeling of punk here, of experimentation and dark magic. ‘The New Life’ will certainly leave many people scratching their heads, but ready and eager for another listen.

Zoe Edwards

Venue: The New Life
Support Band: Tough Love