By Liz Belilovskaya
Smooth and surprising, the new EP album Broken Dreams Club from Girls has a groovy, totally kick-ass sound that isn’t overpowering and perfectly appropriate for heavy duty relaxing. It is the kind of album that has sound elements that seem intangibly familiar but mixed in a non-expected clever way that keeps the auditory senses amused while effortlessly engaged. The Girls offer a much needed escape to listeners of current radio who are tired of having heavy dance music or heart bleeding ballads blasted at them when ever they turn the radio on. This is chill music.
From the beginning to the end of the album you expect to hear a concrete type of singing accompany a specific sound only to find yourself surprised at hearing a very different type of voice melodically recite the vocals to complementary beats and brass instruments. It works. As a matter of fact it works really freaking well. Girls don’t try to deliver what is expected from their genre, instead they supply auditory surprises and keeping their attention. It’s difficult to predict what’s coming next and that is exactly why the album is so damn interesting.
The band fused classic guitars and various wind instruments and opted for refreshing mildly-manipulated electronic sounds to create comfortable, yet persistently witty melodic arrangements that blend the modern with the classic. The music is
predominantly acoustic, allowing the listener to revisit lightly-processed instrumentation instead of the current electronically generated synth-pop that’s fueling the airwaves. There are no strong messages lyrically or musically, all the songs have smooth textures and polished sounds. The lyrics are about life and relationship woes. Broken Dreams Club doesn’t abuse or challenge with heavy beats or overly aggressive singing; generally upbeat, and occasionally lazy, breezy and blatantly awesome. It’s the type of album you can play to highlight an already good day or erase the effects of a bad one.
The first song “Thee Oh So Protected One” is initially not what it leads to you to believe. It starts off sounding like a Calexico-inspired orchestra with the sax leading the music into relaxed, playful vocals and a little caressing. The singing starts after a half a minute or so. The voice of Christopher Owen is similar to the vocalist from Arcade Fire with a distant resemblance to REM. The voice is calm, soothing and deep with a feathery ska undertone similar to Elvis Costello.
The only song featuring a female vocalist is “Substance.” Its important to note that this feature brought an even softer quality to
the album. We expect a girl to appear on the record and after enough teasing she finally does and she delivers. Her voice is lovely, light and sweet and the combination of the masculine and feminine vocal tone gives a nice balance to the other tracks. Those female vocals are also present on “Carolina” butressed by electric guitars that blend abley to the softness of voice. Truly masterful production.
The drum-driven “Heartbreaker” is a change of pace for the short album. The drum relegates the guitars to the periphery, calling for a thump that isn’t present elsewhere on the EP.
The music is structured well and and the members of Girls are moody, melodic and charming. The title track is definitely not the most up-beat song featured on the record but it exhibits a crisp and wispy air that does not make you cry or relive past breakups but it allows you to relate to the singer while the negative feelings are slowly elated as you listen closer. The idea behind the music
is to make it simple enough to allow the listener to be able to focus in on all the layers of the composition. The track sounds like a Western love story and you find yourself rooting for the cowboy. This is not a garage band or if it is, it’s a really good one.
Girls – “Heartbreaker”
out of 5
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