charly bliss: guppy

i didn't connect with the songs they prereleased individually but i am in love with this album and how it's sequenced. "blown to bits" is an incredible opener.

I've been listening to this on my commutes and it is simply fabulous. Gigantic hooks, smart lyrics, slick production. One of those albums where I'm looking forward to my next chance to crank it.

This feels like a good-to-great pop record that's really hamstrung by the laziness and obviousness of its production choices. Like, I find myself weirdly resentful of the way synths are used on records like this, like they're just there to add ballast and when you get to the end of the record you realise you haven't heard a single interesting or distinctive sound. Everything's blown up to such an extent that the record feels flat rather than big.

Also like a lot of bands who feel more about energy and momentum rather than rhythm it feels like they struggle to keep things interesting when the tempo drops a little bit. Like a song like Young Enough could really work with a different approach but it feels like a big stadium song that's constructed in the way that you might build a wall, just thudding and leaden and predictable.

^

yeah I can agree with that

I think I agree with that too. Great songs, so-so sound.

I thought the production on this was good and suited the songs.

i guess this really illuminates what kind of a music / Charly Bliss fan I am, but i think "Hard to Believe" is my favorite song here

and i love the rest of it

but

that chorus

Agreed. I think the last indie band that could write choruses like this was the New Pornographers, but I don’t think even they ever had so many good ones on one album.

I like a lot about the new album, but there are too many instances of the campfire indie stomp thing (more than zero). Every time it crops up it takes me out of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNneb7pj3n8

i posted something like this in the Weyes Blood thread to crickets, but...

anyone hear the quick wrong note in "Hard to Believe" at 2:06/07? love that kind of stuff.

i can't stop listening to this song.

someone actually commissioned kay hanley to review the record, which is perfect https://www.talkhouse.com/charly-bliss-flirts-with-the-brutal-truth/

I don’t know how to review an album. It’s too much responsibility. Why did I agree to this? Argh.

lmao relatable

i love this

Caught their show last night at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, and man was it great. This was their first time playing the big room -- they've played the much smaller adjacent tavern before -- and the energy onstage was just unbelievable. Definitely one of the best shows I've seen in the last 10 years or so. The interplay between Eva, Spencer and Dan is so energetic and infectious it's impossible to stand still while you're watching them. Can't remember the whole set list (I'm gonna be 50, gimme a break) but it included

Blown to Bits
Percolator
Ruby
Hard to Believe
Heaven
Chatroom
DQ
Black Hole
Young Enough

and five or so others. And they closed with an encore of "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers.

(I just realized last night that Eva said her first big inspiration for learning to write songs was Rilo Kiley, and both bands have former child actors in them.)

A couple of phone pics I snapped:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/62315899_369167847286633_7547021008163569664_o.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_eui2=AeF-BxRmW1Vn9CTRT2cG6w-3dSpJs1NuzK2zogD8HE6ThFJ30bYMxAK9YI41flIA4wJIPO9NfMOgFa2imSog3JM09lTC4K29PB5IiYzBDv87aQ&_nc_oc=AQkVjNaZSh5kgY5d9npRAYO98Vx_dJxryOSo67L6MpnFJu0JEJkZXRJKXWmvMuv8yE45-qY3jS-Ry9WdTgOg8EX6&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=49486b925ab34df67e4dea3452900bf3&oe=5D9A2D53

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/62508100_369167880619963_3747143190898016256_o.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_eui2=AeGI_rMobmsTrzuGbsKH_JxtWu0nK22JN_0kYMZ-Ox9a9_ZEaQlR_7Hno-7GcDn3B85XMwr20OsBe1uFKqcS_JqMq7BzSOfZC3VaYJaazqbfSw&_nc_oc=AQlwb62G7oRhBrTPVa3XREnAL-dciaN7AW-a-igGg4M78362GwiN_VR6v0F8WPUa2Cnc_9BwFEt5rL94jtNEMOJh&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=d90b96b629dcaeab509c8b57009d7c32&oe=5D9DE151

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/62239347_369167960619955_6306320813091979264_o.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_eui2=AeGWva-Z_AG6tfTBmFQPbxM3SWLq5nprIZceR6pBIpJ_Zt8rslzUyoANdTakaCYjJA8-Q_RiKjcDd6_t8p27zQMvZc51IicxRBkn3E17RygygA&_nc_oc=AQkHDObdRKpkp6_XIcqJAFwq_vSfGQW1BfIL6zuhGaYxF5Kc4YiSuWiiQYdLc3yQoYeTgbuiZbUVw6nPSGcBTnfN&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=168d6577f85fdb5dc31528f2d9c3bb35&oe=5D9D3266

aw i love those photos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwszMAktc-M

Christgau's take: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xqmj/robert-christgau-reviews-charly-bliss-young-enough

He mostly likes it except (typically) wishes it was a bit more political and not so bougie.

hey so just to check in we now all agree that the new one fucking owns right? good

Nah, still hate it.

what's the irish phrase? git tae fuck?

I've made peace with the fact they don't owe me another album that hits me the way Guppy did, so y'all enjoy.

I'm a sucker for albums about bad relationships tbqh

I can't fault them for changing things up a bit, because they're still exceedingly competent about it. It's just not my particular bag. otoh the other big disappointment I had this year (Marina's album) comes down entirely to the fact she's become incredibly timid in her musical expression and the result is devoid of personality and risk. Charly Bliss didn't get shy. They just got more polished.

Not a day goes by that "Capacity" isn't playing in my head at some point. And also usually "Camera."

"Under You" gets me right in the pit of my self-abnegating heart

I'm pretty far removed from feeling relationship shit deeply at this point (I haven't so much as dated since 2012), so nothing about love and loss hooks me to the degree it might have in the past.

interesting -- not that the songs aren't about that but I wouldn't call charly bliss's core appeal their being about deep relationship shit

You're right. Not saying they really go spelunking into the deep, but silby's apparently taking that away from listens to the album.

did I say deep?

"pit of my self-abnegating heart" insinuated as much. Ignore me, though!

The whole of this exchange is very low stakes for me, and I'm really just basing all my objections on the synths lol

I mean I think it's high-impact, like cf. the two most romantic things I've seen in the movies lately are Max giving blood to Furiosa and the consensual mushroom poisoning in Phantom Thread if that gives you a sense of my brain I don't know if I think it's deep

the synths are good they're like woomwoomwoom and then on other songs the guitars are like grangrangrang

I normally don't post on ILM lol but something like one album per year totally wrecks me and this year it's this one so I wanna yell about it

Go off! I'm glad people still have that energy. I don't anymore, even if I'm totally into something. I've only posted a couple times on the Meernaa thread, and that's my clear 2019 fave.

oh I meant, the core appeal seems to me like the hooks, where basically anything could be sung over them and it'd still be great; the lyrics are a bonus

find it impossible to think of the lyrics as a "bonus" in an album like this but the world is full of different kinds of people and that's great

at first i was indifferent, but this is a grower it seems

Saw 'em in Sydney a couple of weeks back, and they were great. Feel like the newer songs have more of a kick live with a higher tempo and less emphasis on the synths. They really just sounded more like Guppy songs, and for the better. Anyway, they had great energy and seemed like they were having lots of fun.

Mr. Brightside cover was cool.

I have to admit that I've warmed up to it (some more) in the last months. Now it's... fine.
But yes, as Johnny Fever said, they don't owe me a Guppy 2 and that's perfectly okay.
By now I'm just glad that this seems to be enjoyed by a lot of people.

new ep! https://charlybliss.bandcamp.com/album/supermoon

lovely news! still going back to young enough pretty regularly

and to drop it on a rare occasion i can listen at work, so thoughtful!

fans of guppy who couldn't get down with the new lp: idk, seems like this is for you

how do they write so many good songs

was mid supermoon and came to post the same thing

Niiiice!

Holy shit @ "Threat." I'm constantly wrestling with whether or not I was that guy in my youth, and I don't think I was to that degree, but I feel this in my bones.

This new E.P sounds somewhat like a bunch of Demos. Everything is quite basic, thin and...boring :(