Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
EAKY BLINDERS
A WEEKLY PLATTER OF GREAT LOCAL TALENT THE WORLD CUP IN RUSSIA HAS KICKED OFF BUT WILL THE LACK OF IRISH TEAMS KILL THE MAGIC?
The Bang Bang Bar only seems to welcome a very specific type of band. They usually look pretty sombre, sound pretty gloomy and sing songs about detachment. They’re usually pretty good looking and effortlessly (and annoyingly) cool. Girls Names, from Belfast, are designed to play the Bang Bang Bar. If only it was real – and not a fictional venue (in the TV show Twin Peaks), they’d be a shoe in.
I’m thinking about Twin Peaks as I listen to ’25’, the jawdropping opener on Girls Names’ new album ‘Stains on Silence’, which is released today. It’s all jangly guitar, huge synths, brooding vocals and…. black. It’s gloriously cheerless, beautifully hypnotic and the perfect scene setter for what is the band’s fourth record – which also happens to be their best. By far. And that’s high praise, I reckon. Girls Names have been consistently great – going against the grain of whatever we think to be the sound of Belfast the last decade or so – be it poppy, indie rock n’ roll or straight up punk rock.
All three albums – the first of which was released in April 2011 – had wonderful, standout moments – the band flitting between post-punk and occasional surf rock, always a touch lofi, always downbeat. The obvious, laziest comparison has consistently been Joy Division – or perhaps Wire, Siouxsie and the Banshees or Spacemen 3. ‘Hypnotic Regression’ was about as ‘fun’ as they got – a borderline pop song, a glint in the Another great gig option tonight in Belfast – Wynona Bleach at Voodoo. Apart from the fact Wynona Bleach – fronted by the force of nature that is Melyssa Shannon – are one of the most promising acts in the country – the gig is actually part of a new weekly showcase called Smorgasbord. Also appearing tonight are Derry’s Roe, Ember Trails and Dirty Faces, while a similar event next week is headlined by the incredibly popular No Oil Paintings. Showcases like this are crucial for the local scene – and Voodoo remains the most important venue for new music in Northern Ireland – so these gigs are well worth your support. Respect to everyone involved! darkness. Due to the quality and quantity of their output to date, the band have been well received on lengthy UK and European tours – indeed the bar was set quite high.
So – to find them at their creative peak four record’s in is a surprise. Yet all eight tracks on this new record bring something to the – well, not the party – perhaps the occasion, I guess. Not a single moment is dull, not even one track is filler. Instead there’s journey and adventure, the weird and wonderful explored from start to close. Opener ’25’ is a sinister waltz, boasting the type of creeping keyboards you’d expect in a really old hammer horror. The calm before the rasping, malicious vocals of single ‘Haus Proud’ and the chaotic, wailing riffage dominating ‘The Process’. The title track is as close as they get to reflection – distressed and extra shoe-gazy, while the album’s closer ‘Karoline’ is arguably the band’s finest moment to date. Another wonky time signature, a killer bassline, big synths – pretty much everything this album – and this band does best, in one neat little five minutes. Not just that, but it dares to end with a little chink of optimism.
‘Stains on Silence’ is dark, borderline malicious, undeniably miserable and pretty much devoid of any light or fun. It’s also extremely powerful and utterly fantastic. In the most purple of purple patches for Northern Irish music – with almost a dozen albums of note released this year, Girls Names have managed to stand out, despite existing in the darkness.
‘Stains on Silence’ is out today and Girls Names play The Black Box, Belfast, For the first time in my life, I’m not very excited by the World Cup, which I usually go crazy for every four years. Simply because Euro 2016 showed me how incredibly exciting it is to have Irish teams in a major tournament – and thus I find myself thinking, when I see ads on TV, Panini sticker books or people wearing that snazzy new Nigeria top is…. ‘what if?’. What if Northern Ireland and the south hadn’t both blown it in their qualifiers? We’d be looking forward to the likes of Northern Ireland v Brazil and ROI v France – and indeed I personally would be putting the final touches to a giant Fanzone in Ormeau Park (site of Belsonic 2018). Instead I’m trying to get excited about following Belgium (no idea why) and – as always – sort of pretending I hate England when I secretly want them to go far and create a little drama. The worse thing about all of this – with the next Euros spread across 12 different countries (a daft idea, taking away from the magic of these tournaments), World Cup 2022 taking place in Qutar (it might as well be on Planet Venus – which is probably a little cooler), it’ll be Euro 2024 – six years away – before we’ll have a similar set up to what we had in France. Oh – and Euro 2024 will be in Germany or Turkey, so not that far to travel, either. I suppose I could start saving now. Just so you know – a pound a day would get me over two grand…...