Girls - Broken DreamsClub

Tue 21st Dec, 2010 in Music Reviews

San Francisco surf-pop duo Girls have delivered the follow up EP to the slice of pure brilliance that was Album, entitled Broken Dreams Club. The opening notes of The Oh So Protective One suggest a more matured and refined sound; in the words of frontman Christopher Owens, 'this record is a letter of intent, it's a snapshot of the horizon. We took the money we've made on tour and worked with the kind of equipment and musicians that would have been too expensive for us in the past'.

To properly contextualise Broken Dreams Club requires a look deeper into the band's (and Owens') back story. Owens grew up in a fanatical religious cult, the Children of God. His older brother contracted pneumonia aged 4, and died due to the cult's fervent policies against hospitals and orthodox medical treatment. His father left the cult, while he and his mother led a nomadic existence, moving between around twenty countries ranging from western Europe (including living through the Bosnian Civil War) to eastern Asia as she was forced to prostitute herself in order to make ends meet. When Owens was 16, he fled the cult, relocating from Slovenia to Amarillo, Texas. Initially working as a night-stocker in a grocery store, Owens became a transient, hitch-hiking his way to New York and sleeping in Union Square.

Eventually he met Chet “JR” White, a Bay Area native raised in Santa Cruz, after both had become involved in the local skating scene. The magnum opus of Owens' journey was Album, a richly evocative and perfectly executed melancholic pop masterpiece about heartbreak and loss, but with great emphasis on the importance of retaining hope amidst the bleakest of situations.

After touring Album for nearly two years, the band have released the aptly titled Broken Dreams Club. The mariachi brass stabs, bar-room piano lines and lush guitar flourishes of The Oh So Protective One open the EP with a distinctly different musical feel to anything on the LP. The lyrics, however, are quintessentially Owens, as he croons 'He'll never know about the times that you cried in the movies/Never know about the times that you cried to the music/He'll never know about the feelings that you've had about him from the start/He'll never know about the times that you cried in the bedroom/About the times that you cried in the classroom/About your mother or your father or the way you got your broken heart'.

Heartbreaker bears a much greater musical resemblance to the band's earlier material, the combination of acoustic and electric guitar strums, phaser effects, tambourines and subtle organ chords low in the mix recalling the spirit of classics such as The Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel. As the track title suggests, Owens once again tells of heartbreak ('There's a voice in the back of my head that says 'You're always going to be alone'/Go turn the TV on, turn off the telephone'). The lush pedal-steel guitars of the country excursion Broken Dreams Club are matched by an inconsolable Owens, whose melancholic intonations of 'I would like some peace of mind/I've got such a heavy heart/And you were broken down before you had a chance to start/And I just don't understand how the world keeps going nowhere' serve to vividly convey a sense of despair and confusion.

The catchy guitar-pop of Alright recalls the band's earlier sound, with the funk bassline and brass backing expanding their sonic palette. Owens' lyrical craftsmanship shows through once again – 'I don't wanna hurt anymore/I don't wanna drive you away/You're the love in my life/But you're driving me completely insane' – as the final minute of the track recalls the breakdown of Album’s Laura. This track is the highlight of the EP up to this point, but the band are far from having exhausted their musical arsenal yet. Substance is an unrestrained ode to the feeling of distorted perception achieved through the use of hallucinogenic substances. In this instance, Owens uses a pill as a metaphor for a form of solitude or an escape from the pressures of life ('Who wants something real/When you could have nothing/Why not just give up/Who wants to try', 'I take the key in my hand and it opens up the day/I take the key in my hand and it takes the pain away'). Stylistically, the track again harks back to the band's earlier material, the glistening guitars and tremolo arm pitch-bent chords enhancing the wistful and despondent feel of the lyrics.

What follows is perhaps the band's best work to date. The sprawling 8 minute closer Carolina is easily a contender for the best track released in 2010. The instrumental opening conjures up visions of eagles soaring overhead as storm clouds close in around long stretches of desert highway in America. Once the track truly hits its stride, Owens breaks into a soaring vocal – 'I'm gonna pick you up baby/Throw you over my shoulder/Take you away, I'm gonna carry you home to Carolina/Away to southern Carolina/And then I'll never let you go' – the sentiment of which is so easy to relate to. Once we achieve a sense of fulfilment and contentment, no-one wants to let it go easily. This moment of release is all the more poignant after the tension that builds steadily through the first half of the track. The loose, bluesy guitar jam at the end of the track signals an upbeat closure to a carefully crafted and brilliantly executed EP.

While it would have been nigh on impossible to clear the height of the bar set by Album, Broken Dreams Club comes close, and that is saying an immense amount for the quality of this record. Broken Dreams Club is one of those rewarding records that reveals more about itself upon each spin, a characteristic disparate from the instant catchiness of Album. Owens has distilled his songwriting and lyricism to the point of being able to paint mental pictures as vivid as any visual art, and it is this refinement that creates such an intricate and elaborate work. If the band continue to progress at this rate, they will surely be embraced further on an international level – stardom is well within their grasp, and for Girls, the sky is clearly the limit. Album II awaits.