Girls: Album | CD review

# Indie

# Pop and rock

(Fantasy Trash Can)

Girls are two boys – Christopher Owens and Chet "JR" White – whose biographies include stories of being born into a cult, millionaire benefactors and addictions to prescription drugs. The duo combine deceptively simple chords and patterns with hazy walls of feedback, Californian pop melodies, surf guitars and Owens's dozy vocal style – which sounds like he's answering a question you asked him yesterday. The result is glorious. Opener Lust for Life sets the woozy scene before the following 11 songs run off into a sepia sunlight of heartbreak, love, loneliness and partying. Recorded in rehearsal spaces on knackered machinery, the band suggest that had Album been given a proper go it would be even better: "It could have been Pet Sounds," they told this paper. But studio majesty be darned, this could prove a modern classic regardless.

Contributor

Will Dean

The GuardianTramp

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