Brooklyn’s own Vivian Girls’ self-titled debut is back in print thanks to label In The Red. A mini album of endless fun, The Vivian Girls bang thrash and clamor with the restless energy of Friday’s final bell. It’s a sloppy smash and grab bag of huge tunes of the kind traded in Brooklyn since the start of the naughties by bands like Cause CO-Motion, The Broke Revue, Blood On The Wall and Tallboys.

Like those bands, Vivan Girls are cut out of the same post-Nuggets psych/garage template as Television Personalities or The Vaselines. It’s the sort of well trodden path where the inherent punk in a classic girl group screamer like The Tammy’s Egyptian Shumba or the jacked up strumming and heavy on the snare snap of The Who’s ‘Kids Are Alright’ is recognized. It leads back, way back to the earliest folk roots of America’s sheebens and speakeasies, a clammering of moonlit inhibitions and wild parties.  It is an inclusive sound that could not be less pretentious.

Drenched in reverb, jangley grit and the effortless sing-song crash of a campfire round, Vivian Girls have an aloof tumultuousness that seems almost oblivious to the thunder landing all around them. The LP explodes from the first and stakes a claim for it’s own intriguing originality with deadpanned lyrics, timeless hooks and an accelerated, exuberant pulse.

The songs are brief direct and full of genuine  enthusiasm  and emotion. The tempos are all racing and propulsive, the melancholic wistfulness of‘Going Insane‘ lasting for only seconds before a blood rush of excitement and goose bumps overwhelms everything. Even the comparative slow jam, ‘Where Do You Run To‘ has all the racing heart, autumn sweetness of a schoolyard crush. And with this, Vivian Girls win me over. With apologies to the poet Wislaw Szymborska, you can be forgiven for thinking the new crush is the first. Vivian Girls are full of promise and their album has in it, all the hopeful Friday-night anticipation of a wide and limitless weekend approaching. 

DOWNLOAD THE VIVIAN GIRLS OR ORDER THE LP
FROM NYC’S BEST RECORD STORE, OTHER MUSIC HERE.

More Vivian Girls HERE.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 15:22. It is filed under We're Listening To.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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