I’ll admit, my interest with Giant Drag actually started as a silly infatuation. I saw a picture of the duo’s front woman Annie Hardy and I immediately checked the band out. Despite her innocent, china doll looks, Hardy is actually a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, sarcastic young lady, and plays guitar in an indie band. This is unlike most other women in her position, who would just go into music to rip off
Michelle Branch. Indeed, Giant Drag are somewhat a rare breed in music today, with other duos like
Death From Above 1979 breaking up,
The White Stripes on hiatus, and, well, Hall & Oats just don’t draw in the big bucks anymore.
Less uncommon, is Giant Drag’s strong 90s influence, a reach that has resurged in recent times with all the alternative superstars like
Dinosaur Jr. and
Pixies reuniting. More specifically, the group’s sound is based more on a less active subgenre of the 90s, shoegaze. Shoegazing has been more influential in terms of the production habits and qualities it brought, while Giant Drag focus more on the actual sound of it, incorporating buttery synthesizers to interplay with Hardy’s fuzzy, grunge-mess, guitar. By the way, Micah Calabrese, the second half of the duo, drums
and does the synths. CRAZY.
Despite the brash playing of grunge guitarists infused into Hardy’s playing, and the ambitious sound of shoegazing, the overall sound of Giant Drag comes off as playful indie pop. With catchy hooks, Hardy’s sweet voice, and cheeky, irrelevant song titles like “YFLMD” (you f
uck like my dad) and “Kevin is Gay”, Giant Drag don’t seem as morbid or daunting as their influencers. The synthesizers are used more as an accessory to boost the guitar’s buoyant catchiness, rather than atmosphere, but still provide a thick surrounding, unlike the synths of 80s pop, that tend to have a sharper, thinner sound.
While the highlights of the album are generally regarded as the indie-pop standards that have the afore mentioned, slightly formulaic, mix of simple fuzzed guitar riffs, thick synths, and bubbly choruses,
Hearts & Unicorns goes further than that. The slower songs are the actual “duo” songs, featuring just guitar and drums, and bring the album some balance, with a more chilled attitude and approach than the peppy ones. Despite usually only having clean guitars, these slower songs still bring 90s nostalgia with Hardy’s feathery vocal harmonies are familiar to
My Bloody Valentine’s airy synchronizations. The two closing tracks “Smashing” and “Slayer” mix up the two song types on the album, “Smashing” being a slow, humming lullaby made up of echoic noises, and “Slayer” being very buoyant and catchy, yet subdued and relaxed
Hearts & Unicorns is a promising debut for this Californian duo, showing a lot of intriguing sounds. Alas, the sounds are used in an often all too formulaic, and at times too repetitive, manner, with all the songs minus the last two mentioned being either “Catchy sparkling indie pop! Yay!” or “like, pssh, chilled out clean song pssh”. But if Giant Drag could take their shoegazing synths, sarcastic attitude, fuzzy strings, and melodies, and mix them all over again... I could just imagine the sexy results! Everyone else can imagine them too by checking this out, or if one just wants some fun, disposable to a point, pop music. Either way, we all need something to listen to while waiting for Hall & Oats’ comeback album.
