Girlpool

Underrated. 2nd Album is a grower.

I love the guitar tone Powerplant

Haven't property digested it yet but on first listen it's interesting that they no longer sound particularly idiosyncratic - as a band and also their voices.

fuck i wish i went to their show here last summer. i just heard "Blah Blah Blah" for the first time, what an amazing song.

New album is great. First album mostly great. Their harmonies do something to me.

The second album seems like a big step up from the debut. I've been playing it a lot.

My favorite new band of the last five years. Thought about starting a thread a couple years ago, not sure why I didn't.

this feels like a flashback to 2012 when I ignored Grimes for nine months because for some reason I thought she was a prefab pop star like Lana Del Rey. last time they were in town, Girlpool played with Snail Mail (great but not my thing) and Frankie Cosmos (zzzzzzzz) and somehow I've never heard them before. Actually I think I saw the video of their NPR Tiny Desk Concert after someone on FB posted it mockingly. w/e I bought the record last night can't wait to hear the whole thing...

got the Powerplant LP, fully on board now. it came with a shirt. hope they tour the east coast soon.

co-sign dat

sweet Fader feature from 6 months ago: http://www.thefader.com/2016/11/30/girlpool-powerplant-harmony-tividad-cleo-tucker-interview

'sleepless' and 'static somewhere' are my faves on the new one

this band is fucking brilliant

I doubt many people would feel the same but "It Gets More Blue" is probably my favourite song of the year. Emotionally it just hits all the right notes for me, it's such a beautiful sigh of a song. The harmonies on the interlude before the second chorus ("but I don't do / what I ought to") are particularly heartbreaking. The full album's amazing too!

It's also interesting how they abandoned what made them interesting and took on a less original sound but actually came out of it with a much better album

I really can't get over how brilliant Before the World Was Big is. For the last year or so I only had a peripheral awareness of Girlpool, and really my only exposure to their music was someone posting their NPR Tiny Desk Concert in a private FB group (skewing mostly punk/metal/rock) totally mocking it. I didn't even watch the video, I just sort of thought "oh, it's a Beat Happening thing - skip." Treeship posted that Blah Blah Blah poll and I heard the Girlpool song - their first song - and it blew me away. Got Powerplant, I instantly loved most of it, especially "123," "It Gets More Blue," and "Corner Store." There are others, and I need to listen to it more, but I don't think it's a better or more interesting album than BTWWB.

The first two records, especially BTWWB, are brilliant because they're working in an idiom (bedroom indie pop/rock) that's known for its sloppiness and has a very rigid and recognizable sound. But they're trained musicians that went to school for this - all the records are "written and arranged" by Cleo & Harmony. So those first chords of "Ideal World" start up, hesitant at first, like all those bedroom bandcamp wankers, and then Cleo rips that open G string and it sounds explosive, like hearing the opening drums on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the first time. It really shook me. And the songwriting is just so strong, so much better than all of their peers. I really can't stand most of those Philly bands, and why bother after BTWWB has been made? Their songwriting is ridiculously great, "Dear Nora" is on par with the best of Elliott Smith. There's a power here and a force that I don't feel from anyone else working in their milieu today. Extremely tight compositions, harmonies, and hilarious wordplay (that drawn out "having seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeances," such a great fake out). BTWWB is at once a rejection and a capstone on bandcamp bedroom pop. I'm bummed I'm 2 years late, but I have a new favorite album. It hasn't left my turntable in a week.

I watched that Tiny Desk concert over and over. It's magnetic.

It's incredible. I wish there were more live recordings of them out there - I can only find 2 performances of "Dear Nora" on youtube. Looks like they're touring Europe in the fall, and they have one festival somewhere in Texas in November. I really hope they hit the east coast again this year.

i feel sick to my stomach knowing i went to their show here last summer and left after my friends opened. fucking hell

Really warming up to Powerplant. I love every song on here - "Kiss and Burn" and "Powerplant" are new standouts. I've listened to Before the World Was Big more than anything other record so far this year, and I've only had it for a month. I love this band so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDprSv9DjxY

Butt ass

— namaste at the disco (@harmonysaccount) October 19, 2017

harmony's twitter page is amazing

Saw Billy Corgan last week. He played "Winterlong," an Adore-era demo/castoff that I wasn't that familiar with. As he played it (I didn't shoot this video but it's from the show I saw), I instantly recognized it... but knew it wasn't Pumpkins... maybe an hour after I got home I realized it's the same chord progression/riff as "It Gets More Blue"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDComu7uDVE

That's a Neil Young cover

Pixies covered it also, before SP

Good song and good catch tho

No, it's an original SP song: http://www.spfc.org/songs-releases/song.html?song_id=608&song_type=-1

But fwiw Billy has been covering "After the Gold Rush" recently at these solo shows.

new song produced by blood orange

https://soundcloud.com/antirecords/girlpool-picturesong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnbYz1Kpy70

New interview, but it's on p4k's awful fucking beer website: https://oct.co/essays/having-beer-girlpool?utm_source=p4k

two new songs + fall tour dates: https://www.spin.com/2018/10/girlpool-lucys-and-where-you-sink/

What Chaos is Imaginary out February 1, 2019.

https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/11/Girlpool-What-Chaos-Is-Imaginary-_-Album-Art-1542118645-640x640.jpg

"Hire" is great, sounds a lot like XO era Elliott Smith. Cleo's vocal performance on that one is thrilling.

https://www.stereogum.com/2022665/girlpool-hire-what-chaos-is-imaginary/music/

fantastic song

yeah I like it a lot more than the other two

xps Was just saying this! It's great - looking forward to listening to the rest of the album. I used to find this band's sound way too thin, but the new stuff seems a big improvement.

I love this album

waiting for my copy

I like it

Wow uh this new album is amazing. It’s very shoegaze

flaps, u gotta POX for this band?

dear nora
before the world was big
ideal world
powerplant
static somewhere
123
blah blah blah
slutmouth
magnifying glass
sleepless

haven't listened to the new one enough to include any here. wasn't that into it at first but powerplant really grew on me.

melodically / harmonically they remind me a lot of blink-182.... so ymmv

ha totally

ty btw

my pleasure. they deserve more attention

well I guess I'm stuck in the lol 90s but they are saving me

listened to the new one today. liked it overall, but the title track towers over the rest. stunning song.

Listening to the new one for the first time in a while, "All Blacked Out" (the song that ends side 1) fucking knocked me out. I'd put that in a POX. not sold on the title track yet or much else tbh but I need to spend more time with this record. the effect that Cleo's new voice has had on them cannot be understated - especially since they're only a duo. it's like having a different singer, and it alters the musical dynamic dramatically.

Right, just remembered how much solo material and demos Cleo & Harmony both have, and that some songs on the new record are really old. This is just stunning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xHYN64L2Ro

This... might actually be my favourite album of theirs? The songwriting is certainly stronger here than on Powerplant, but it's also so dark that I find i'm not returning to it as much as i did Powerplant two years ago.

But holy fuck, that title track

the nihilist tells me that nothing is true/ I faked global warming just to get close to you

I could listen to this song all day

ok seriously "It Gets More Blue" is the best indie pop song of this decade maybe this century

it's great

I'm still obsessed with All Blacked Out

gorgeous

They posted the demos for What Chaos is Imaginary on Bandcamp, recorded before Cleo transitioned. He has a really nice essay that goes along with it that talks about how uncomfortable it is to hear these old recordings but there is a need to make peace with the voice he used to have.

Having said that, I've been lukewarm on recent girlpool mainly because of production choices. Had a hard time with the last song they released.

These stripped down demos sound like a lost early album and I love it.

the demo of "All Blacked Out" is my favorite thing they've done

Aw, I love the production on What Chaos, they consistently have the most amazing sounding albums.

The last time I saw them, the enthusiasm for playing the new material was pretty incredible, like Avery sustaining the intensity of the "I let it live" part of "Hire" for the entire song. And the way the older stuff was reimagined, while also winking at its remoteness, was lovely. "Chinatown" with dorky guitar licks after the choruses.

I like the album version a lot, it's a great version, but I didn't love the song til I heard the demo. the drawn out tempo & atmospherics of the album version vs. the more platonic demo

Didn't even try to see them when they were here in nov or dec but obv will next time I can in .....3 years??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-sIoRmX6TE

love this one from their upcoming album

yeah! I've also fallen in love with "Faultline" since thread's last posts. I'm excited to hear how the album gets from the opening songs to those two toward the middle (and trying to avoid playing any of them much til then).

probably just the power of suggestion but "Faultline" really does remind me of Possum Dixon's "Faultlines." the serenity of not knowing when the ground will give way, or something.

incredible album, again