With four years having passed since their 2015 standout, “Holding Hands with Jamie” was infecting their fans brains with electronica inspired industrial-noise rock; it seems that 2019 is the year fans finally get their second course of Girl Band madness, this time starting with ‘Shoulderblades’.
Literally moments into ‘Shoulderblades’, you’re immediately faced with an auditory shit storm, with what sounds like scraping chairs in the form of a sliding bass hook, shifting from left to right with no apparent consistency, already casting an uncomfortable and malicious air to the track. Then to be greeted by frontman Dara Kiely in his usual unruly slurs, ‘Shoulderblades’ properly kicks of with the ambiguous line “feel like a chicken, act like a cock”.
And if the first thirty or so seconds seemed, strange, bizarre, uncomfortable or even marginally terrifying, the Dublin group have continued to add to their list of uncomfortable music videos, as director Bob Gallagher and performer Oona Doherty unite to create possibly the most unsettling video the group have released yet. With a simple stage light switching from blue to red, and Doherty as the only focus, Gallagher’s unsaturated set allows Doherty to truly unleash a schizophrenic beast in time with the groups inconsistent waves of howling guitars and rapturous drumming. Throwing abrupt, jagged movements, as if the girl from the ring had grown up, tied her hair, now being ready to climb through your phone screen and murder you; Doherty’s unnatural performance ties in perfectly with ‘Shoulderblades’ and will quite possibly be the most creative, yet equally terrifying experiences you’ll witness this year.
Alongside the madness of ‘Shoulderblades’, Girl Band also announced news of their second LP, “The Talkies”, which is due to be released September 27th through Rough Trade Records, with a special Indie’s-only copy available to pre order here.
The tracklist for “The Talkies” is as below
01 Prolix
02 Going Norway
03 Shoulderblades
04 Couch Combover
05 Aibophobia
06 Salmon Of Knowledge
07 Akineton
08 Amygdala
09 Caveat
10 Laggard
11 Prefab Castle
12 Ereignis
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