Girls - Album

Ok, so he grew up in a cult which banned pop music, he’s addicted to prescription drugs and he’s just been through a messy break up with his girlfriend. This is all very interesting and of course will shape the work of Christopher Owens – singer, songwriter and one half of Girls – but I can’t help feeling a bit suspicious when most of the hype surrounding a new artist seems to be caused more by their troubled past than their music. But, as proved by Bon Iver and his cabin-in-the-woods, it is possible for a band to break free from their back story – so long as their music has the staying power and resonance of that found on For Emma.

Opening with the instantly catchy Lust For Life and Laura, Album kicks things off with an irresistible one two punch – the former being one of the finest indie singles this year. Owens, sounding like a slightly off-balance Elvis Costello, yelps atop twanging guitars, melodic bass and muffled backing vocals - all wrapped in a lo-fi haze. Although this lo-fi, lo-budget sound has been done many times before, rarely has it been rendered so tastefully – every songs’ components bleeding into a single, beautiful whole.

The ever-hip Beach Boys influence is as on-show here as it is on any recent indie record; in fact, Girls have claimed that, with a bigger budget, Album ‘could have been Pet Sounds’. Hyperbole this may be, but it is not hard to imagine Brian Wilson making this record, had he been brought up on Pavement and Guided By Voices. On the surface, Girls play melodic pop songs but, just like on Wilson’s masterpiece, there is a distinct feeling of loneliness and heartbreak lurking underneath this facade, giving Album much more depth and power than is initially apparent.

Owens’ despair is really laid out for all to see on Hellhole Ratface, Album’s seven minute centrepiece, which is built around repetitions of the yearning chorus: ‘I don’t want to cry my whole life through, I wanna do some laughing too. So come on, come on, come on, come on and laugh with me.’ You don’t need to know the back-story, everything you need to know is right here – in the lyrics, in the cascading melody, in Owens’ voice. Whilst maybe not the subtlest, Hellhole Ratface pulls at the heartstrings like few other songs heard this year.

So it seems there really is some great music behind the headlines but whether we’ll still be talking about Album in a year’s time, as we still are about For Emma, Forever Ago, is a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, Album sounds very attached to the fashions of today (Lo-fi? Check. Brian Wilson? Check.), seeming to suggest that Girls will be here and gone before you can say ‘fickle music business’. But this is a deceptively subtle set of songs, an album full of little touches as well as bold statements that could easily stick around for longer than we might expect.

Ultimately, only time will tell. Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts.

Listen now on Spotify

Tom