GIRLS – Father, Son, Holy Ghost (Part 3)

Brandon takes up Dave’s challenge and goes full curmudgeon. Are Girls wasting their talents on Father, Son, Holy Ghost? Do flutes really suck? (hint: yes.) Most importantly though, are Girls the quintessential post-modern rock band? (Oh yeah. He went there.) These questions answered (or, at least, you know, alluded to) after the jump.

Girls – “Carolina” from Broken Dreams Club EP

From: Brandon Hall
To: David Weintrop

But didn’t that uniformity get old? Back to this in a moment.

Girls is primarily, officially, just two dudes. Lead singer and guitarist, Christopher Owens, and bassist and producer, Chet White. I can’t say why they’re called Girls, but I don’t really know the reason for most band names, and usually, when the genesis of a given name is revealed, it’s disappointing, unflattering, or just lame – something one of the dudes said while drunk at a bar. For what it’s worth, their debut, Album, had a lot of songs written about and titled after various girls.

Also, I don’t want to spend much time here delving into band back story, but Owens does happen to possess maybe one of the craziest rock and roll bios I’ve ever seen. This is the opening to the Pitchfork review of Album which I’m just going to block quote here:

Girls frontman Christopher Owens grew up in the Children of God cult. His older brother died as a baby because the cult didn’t believe in medical attention. His dad left. He and his mother lived around the world, and the cult sometimes forced his mother to prostitute herself. As a teenager, Owens fled and lived as a Texas gutter-punk for a while. Then a local millionaire took Owens under his wing, and Owens moved to San Francisco. There, he and Chet “JR” White formed Girls, and recorded Album, their debut album, under the influence of just about every kind of pill they could find.

I mean, come on. That’s just ridiculous. Knowing this also brings into context the mother theme that shows up throughout the album, most prevalently on opener “Honey Bunny” and, of course, “My Ma.” I don’t know what kind of pills they were on when they made Father, Son, Holy Ghost but they were probably downers and most definitely the wrong ones.

OK. Full curmudgeon mode, now? I may be going there. You know, by the end of my last letter to you, I was feeling much more pessimistic about the album than the tone of what I had actually written had let on. Understand that after Album, Broken Dreams Club, and the pre-album-release single “Vomit,” I was totally ready to crown Girls the “Newest Best Thing.” And I loved the first three songs on the album. “Die” fucking rocks. And I think what the band is doing makes a lot more sense when you look at them as a post-modern Elvis Costello, absolutely afraid of nothing; willing and able to try everything. Their cool so permanently, intrinsically intact that they can write pseudo-country-by-way-of-Queen’s-“Crazy-Little-Thing-Called-Love” tracks “How Can I Say I Love You” and “Magic” as well as cloying, purple, melodramatic ballads like “Just a Song” without risking a shred of their cred. So I was predisposed to “loving” this album and it took a while to let go of those preconceptions and allow myself to be truly disappointed.

I cannot express enough how much I hate “Just a Song.” I hate it more than I love “Vomit” and it does the horrific disservice of directly following “Vomit” and beating its epic-form length by 17 seconds, clocking in at 6:48. I think “Just a Song” is the key to my disappointment with this album. I was wrong when I said “Vomit” was the centerpiece. Standout, it may be, but it’s an aberration. The true centerpiece is “Just a Song,” a stab your eyes out, reflexive skip-button-pushing, saccharine-soaked ballad that finds Owens spending the final three minutes cooing “Love. Love. Love. It’s just a song.” over fluttering flutes. Oh, just kill me.

And this weepy ballad mentality seems pervasive on the album, “My Ma,” “Just a Song,” “Forgiveness,” “Love Life,” “Jamie Marie” – some good, some bad, some with kick ass codas that almost make up for what came before (see: “Forgiveness,” “Jamie Marie”). This really frustrates me, primarily because Girls have shown what they’re capable of.

While many contemporary bands pick one bygone era sound to copy — be it 80s new wave, 70s garage rock, 90s slacker punk — Girls are master mimics, able to take seemingly any and all genres and reconceptualize them, make them totally their own. I actually really love their 60s Righteous Brothers sounding waltz, “Love Life,” for instance. It feels delightfully familiar and yet fresh, like a remodeled, souped up ’64 Mustang. And they have been doing this since they arrived on the scene, aping one sound after another while amazingly never feeling derivative or tired. What’s most fascinating to me about this band, beyond how prodigiously skilled Owens and White are, is how they are the quintessential post-modern rock band, assimilating every nostalgic urge they can think of, dusting it off,  and reshaping it with precision and thrilling audacity. They’re hipsters with sincerity — my favorite kind.

So why settle for cheesy 7 minute ballads with flutes?

“Nothing’s going to be just fine, no we’re all going straight to hell tonight,”

Brandon

Girls – “Lust For Life” from Album (because they should do more of this)