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Girlpool - Chinatown

Girlpool are a band with enormous potential, capable of determined raucousness as well as transparent displays of primal emotion.

27th January 2015

Wichita’s latest signees Girlpool are a fascinating prospect. ‘Chinatown’ takes a departure from the more visceral, pleasantly shrieksome tracks in their growing catalogue; with just a hint of the biting, confrontational style of tracks like ‘Blah Blah Blah’ in ‘Chinatown’, a gorgeously produced track that sums up the potential of Cleo Tucker (guitar) and Harmony Tividad (bass).

If anything, there’s an overriding sense of vulnerability in ‘Chinatown’, a yearning for togetherness that seems incongruous compared to the two’s early tracks. ‘Chinatown’ is driven by a First Aid Kit-esque texture in the vocals; “and if I told you I loved you would you take it the wrong way?” is sang in unison to striking effect. It makes sense, then, for Wichita to have taken Girlpool into their roster, but rather than the aforementioned Scandinavians’ folksy instrumentation, there’s a crisp Stratocaster hum, dripping with so much reverb that surely Christopher Owens would approve. Achingly minimal, the guitar and bass arrangements allow for the lyrics to take centre stage. “Do you feel restless when you realise you’re alive?”, is a bizarrely confident sounding vocal delivery, belying the enormous fragility of the lyricism.

This is disarming music matching a narrative that sounds fractured, almost pleading. Girlpool are a band with enormous potential, capable of determined raucousness as well as transparent displays of primal emotion.

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Tags: Reviews, Girli, Listen