Skip to main content

alexandre-briand
28th October 2011

Album: Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost

Second album from indie rock band Girls continues to channel the 60’s sunshine pop of Roy Orbison and the Beach Boys.
Categories:
TLDR

Girls
Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Turnstile Music

4 & 1/2 stars

When Girls’ debut Album was released in 2009, it was embraced for all its lo-fi tortured optimism and let’s-get-fucked-up-and-love-each-other balladry. The story that led to its conception was pretty damn unbelievable (abandoned son of god-fearing cult members moves to San Francisco, is taken in by local millionaire, starts band with neighbourhood punks), and bandleader Christopher Owens’ voice had apparently been tailor-made to break hearts, falling somewhere between Elvis Costello and Ryan Adams’ end-of-the-road romanticism.

On Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Owens continues to channel the 60’s sunshine pop of Roy Orbison and the Beach Boys, but in an altogether more ambitious, rounded and ultimately satisfying piece of work. Just like on the first album, there’s a fresh batch of bouncy anthems about love that immediately sound like songs you’ve loved all your life, yet they’re tossed in with the Deep-Purple inspired, riff-heavy ‘Die’, the heartbreaking ‘Vomit’, and the world-weary despair of ‘Myma’. It’s an emotionality that borders on cliché, but lines that could appear over-sentimental and tacky elsewhere are so earnestly and desperately delivered that you can’t help but lend it the same sympathy and understanding that you would a close friend.

As is clear from the offset, the album borrows heavily from the past, but it’s hard to imagine Owens’ songs delivered in any other way. These are pop songs as they used to be, with all the raw emotion and attention to musical detail intact. Of course, it’s got its weaker moments, but all in all, Father, Son is anthemic, joyous, genuinely affecting and impossibly endearing in equal measure.


More Coverage

The Smile live at BBC Radio 6 Music Festival: Contagious follow-up project impresses Manchester

Fans gather to see the much-anticipated Radiohead follow-up project The Smile headlining the Radio 6 Music festival in Manchester’s O2 Victoria Warehouse

Liam Gallagher and John Squire live in Manchester: ‘Growing old disgracefully’ in the best way possible

Oasis’ Liam Gallagher teams up with boyhood guitar hero John Squire of The Stone Roses to deliver psychedelic raucousness in Manchester

This Feeling live in Manchester: Rivia, The Stride, and Kyris take Off the Square

META – This Feeling’s latest Manchester outing showcases three guitar bands with big futures

86TVs live in Manchester: Headline debut in the city lights up the Deaf Institute

86TVs made their Manchester headline debut at The Deaf Institute, showcasing their new EP and unreleased material