Fresh Cherries from Yakima

i should get this out of the way early: i’m absolutely head-over-heels in love with brooklyn-based trio vivian girls. this is why i’m writing about an album which sold out damn-near instantaneously, and will not be re-released until the fall (on in the red records, a natural fit, being as though they’re the former label home of the black lips).

chris, the world-famous tastemaker behind gorilla vs. bear fell in love a while ago (and i must take this time out to thank him for reasons that will incriminate us both in a court of law), pointing out comparisons to the vaselines, with one of his commenters giving the 100% OTM comparison: “these sexy girls sound like the ronnettes produced by kevin shields.” a friend of mine compared them to sorely underappreciated 60’s group the pleasure seekers. no matter what you think they sound like (in my summer mix for jeff weiss’ blog, i called them a “shoegaze girl-group,” which is only half-right; they’re more like a no-wave girl-group, which is even better), all the buzzing is rightfully deserved.

in a recurring theme among my other favorite records of the year so far (nouns and skeleton, if you were wondering), vivian girls gets its point across with forceful brevity. at just a sneeze over twenty-one minutes, you’d be easily tricked into thinking this was an EP, with just four songs scurrying past the two-minute mark, and only one stretching past 3:30.

on the songs, the reverb-drenched harmonies beautifully offset the dissonant, thrashy guitars and crashing drums, creating a beautiful counterpoint to a genre (no-wave, if you haven’t been keeping score) that so often values art-damage over concise pop songwriting. “where do you run to” and “damaged” hammer this point home, playing guitars that sound like buzzsaws trying to cut through rusty metal and taking a simple vocal melody and turning it into something that sounds as timeless as the sources they’re taking cues from, no matter how disparate they may be.

if you’re looking for anything complex in the songwriting on vivian girls, you probably should look elsewhere; simplicity is a key component to not only the construction, but the enjoyability of this album. the lyrics are straightforward (in “no,” the title is the only lyric), you can count the chords for every song on one hand (and on most of them, you’ll never get around to using your pinky), and vocal gymnastics or complex block harmonies are non-existent. if you’re expecting vivian girls to be the all-female equivalent of battles, severe disappointment is in the cards. however, if you’re not put off by a punk band that’s not afraid to bring things back to basics (so far back, in fact, they’re practically a punk band founded on an era of songwriting that punk was invented to rally against), then vivian girls might end up being one of your favorite records of the year, making you just one of the many (present company included, obviously) that have fallen for the charms of three tattooed girls from brooklyn.

MP3: vivian girls- damaged.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under experimental punk, on repeat, new album. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.