Father, Son, Holy Ghost is the second album by LA-based rock band Girls, which consists primarily of lead singer Christopher Owen and Chet Jr White, with some help along the way from various additional members. one small seed contributor Adam Alexander gives his take on their latest album.
Girls‘ debut album, Album, released in 2009 showed a diverse style that seemed to draw influences from many different musical movements. It also resisted being classified, and never contained a dominant motif that would have helped to define it. Based on Album, I expected Father, Son, Holy Ghost – their third release after their 2010 Broken Dreams Club EP - would sometimes be noisy and lively, at times slow and introspective, but also retrospective. The album gets off to a running start with ‘Honey Bunny’, a song where Owen say’s that ‘you don’t like my bony body, you don’t like my dirty hair or the stuff that I say, or the stuff that I’m on..
Second song ‘Alex’ is lively and in a smilar spirit as ‘Die’, which comes in with a cool riff and brilliant singing guitar. It’s a party song, from it’s rocking drums to the intent to ‘get fucked up tonight’. This is followed by ‘Saying I Love You‘, a romance-themed ballad that changes the mood of the album, while ‘My Ma’ is pained and moody, letting the guitar do some crying, an early indicator of an album made from diverse emotions. ‘Vomit‘ starts off very stripped down before the noise jumps out from behind a corner, then builds to a noisy crescendo by the end, in a very Antlers-ish way.
‘Just A Song’ is relaxed and acoustic, as is ‘Forgiveness‘. Both of these show a similarly grim disposition, with the former saying how ‘It feels like nobody’s happy now,’ and the latter saying that ‘nothings going to get any better.’ These sandwich a much happier tune, ‘Magic‘, which has a very ’60s feel to it.
Girls wrap the album up nicely with ‘Love Like A River,’ a lovely little song, before the equally good ‘Jamie Marie’ closes Father, Son, Holy Ghost, parhaps hinting that there may be a happy ending for Christopher Owens after all.
I’m sure that there are many people that have been waiting for the great indie-rock album of the year, an album with guitar solos, that doesn’t fanny about with synths and samples. This is that album.
It has an old school, guitar-based feel about it that will come across as familiar, featuring both riff-based awesomeness and acoustic beauty.
Not that long ago the Arctic Monkeys said that they felt that it was their ‘duty’ to keep guitar music alive, and you kind of knew what they meant. After the White Stripes dissolved and even The Kills have recently drifted away from their riff-heavy sound, the Sheffield band felt the need to promise not to let that style of music fade away. In Girls, they have allies in that cause.
Images:Courtesy of Girls
