Review Summary: Some Girls' debut album is a fun, simple album that is a breath of fresh air for the monotonous modern hardcore scene.
Some Girls-All My Friends Are Going Death
Some Girls is a hardcore “super group” consisting of members from Give Up the Ghost/American Nightmare, The Locust, and The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower. The band plays a flamboyant blend of 31g-style hardcore and grind core with plenty of mid-tempo, twostep-friendly sections driven by Justin Pearsons’ unique-sounding fuzz bass and demented gang vocals that are reminiscent of dogs barking at one another when they encounter on the sidewalk. This and the drummer’s ability to switch from playing a moderate punk beat to a fast, frenzied blast beat in an instant make “All My Friends Are Going Death” an overall fun listen, despite not being the most original sound out there.
Perhaps the best aspect of Some Girls is that they are able to play intense hardcore without the typical machismo that is usually delivered with the genre. The band is not trying to have a “brootal” sound or preach about being straight edge, the music is simple and fun while at the same time being intelligent and artistic instead of bogging you down with uninspired yelling about giving respecting someone’s crew or not imposing beliefs on them. In a way Some Girls is taking hardcore and bringing it back to what it originally was: a fun music scene/subculture that gave kids a feeling they belong, something that is sadly absent in the majority of the scene today.
The highlight of “All My Friends Are Going Death” is singer Wes Eisold’s vocal delivery. Seeming to take influence from The Locust, Eisold’s approach lands somewhere in-between a hardcore/metal core mid-pitched scream and the high-pitched, whiny yip showcased by bands like the Locust and Blood Brothers (Johnny Whitney, to be specific).
He manages to sound like a tortured animal, which makes things very fun to listen to. The lyrics he produces are mostly typical of 31g bands, colorful and comedic lyrics with playful hooks and morbid metaphors are all over this album. Backing vocals find Justin Pearson yelling in his typical, high-pitched manic scream. Many songs have catchy, sing-along choruses that add to the flamboyant, street-like atmosphere albeit having no melody.
The main problem with this effort is that all of the songs sound the same, with similar chord progressions and song structures throughout. Two of the tracks (Up to Our Hips Again and the bonus track, even though the former is better than the original Up to Our Hips) are just rehashes of previous songs heard not but 12 minutes ago, making the album quite repetitive, even for it’s 17-minute runtime. While with most albums around this length leave you wanting more, All My Friends Are Going Death is the perfect album for such a short length, stretching it out any longer would make this album a pain to listen to.
All in all, “All My Friends Are Going Death” is a fun album that will entertain you for it’s runtime without requiring much thinking or taking up much time. This is a perfect album for people fed up and bored with the bland and uninspired hardcore scene of today.
Recommended Tracks:
Gonna Set My Soul On Fire
Sex and Glue
Some Girls Have All the ***
No Fun
Up to Our Hips Again
