Before I get into the review proper, I feel I must
address the elephant in the room: Golden Grrrls have a pretty terrible name.
It’s not that they share a name with the geriatric sitcom popular in the 80s; rather,
they have jumped onto the infuriating “ironic spelling” bandwagon that seems oh
so popular these days. But childlike spelling tantrum now over, let’s get down
to business...
Golden Grrrls’ self-titled debut is good. In fact, it’s
more than good: it’s great. Delightfully rough around the edges, it ticks all
the right boxes for a top indie-pop release. Wearing their pop sensibilities
unashamedly on their sleeves, Golden Grrrls fire through the album with gusto
and succeed at every fuzzy-guitared pass. There are flavours of Dinosaur Jr,
The Moldy Peaches and fellow Central Belters The Spook School throughout, but
their influence is felt without the record sounding derivative. (And I know
it’s lazy journalism to namedrop so many bands but hey, who’s writing this
article anyway?!)
Upbeat to its very core, Golden Grrrls is – like many albums I’ve really got into recently –
a perfect summery record. Maybe that says more about my innate North of
Scotland yearning for sunshine than anything else, but regardless this is a
very happy-sounding album. I couldn’t help but smile broadly the whole time I
was listening to it.
Opener New Pop
crackles with fizzy energy, and it soon becomes apparent that Golden Grrrls have
started as they mean to continue. As they charge through tracks like Older Today and Take Your Time, there’s something rather charming about the
slightly-off but perfectly-suited dual vocals that appear across the record. It
really is just a joy to listen to.
So there you have it: a terrific lo-fi album by a
terrific band with a not-so terrific name. I really shouldn’t dwell on that,
though. After all, they could be called something much worse. Like Coldplay.
Golden Grrrls by Golden Grrrls is out on
the 25th of February via Night School Records.
ES
No comments:
Post a Comment