Kadhim's totally hot album of the week #2
A supremely (un)knowledgeable column about music
Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost 2011
Girls’ frontman Christopher Owen is an opiate-addicted former cult-member: have I got your attention? Good. Father, Son, Holy Ghost is the richest indie-rock album that anyone has made in a long time. It’s as rich as a warm chocolate brownie with artery-clogging chocolate sauce on top and a dollop of triple cream on top of that for good coronary measure.
Their first album was enjoyable enough; it pushed a somewhat immature sense of angst about girls, being crazy, and wishing you had a “pizza and a bottle of wine”. It tugged at the heartstrings with the intellectual rigour of a stupid, slobbering puppy.
Their second album, on the other hand, touches parts of me that have never been touched before (cue ‘hilarious’ joke about Imperial virgins). But seriously, this album croons, shakes it hair out, beams a smile across the room at you, cuts its arms, headbangs like a crazy muthafucker, and bares a soul so sad, so lonely, so yearning for redemption that you can barely keep listening. But, crucially, it rewards repeat listens. These are emotions to be understood with care, not simply gawped at for disposable amusement.
I’ll end with a slightly trivial point. Around half-way through the album, near the end of the song ‘Vomit’, you’re suddenly surprised by gospel singers belting out harmonies; I haven’t had the words “so fucking good” explode out of my head so powerfully than at that moment.
Tell me the last song that made you think “so fucking good” by tweeting me @kadhimshubber. If, by some coincidence, it happens to be ‘Vomit’, tell Christopher Owens direct by tweeting him @Chri55yBaby.
