Review Summary: baa baa black soul
I think adults need lullabies too. Black sheep are redundant, though, and we’re old enough to know that stars don’t twinkle – they burn violently until they die. I also think that when the world’s not a total mess, it’s meaningless and mundane and inscrutable; its generosity extended only to keep us from falling off its surface. Girlpool could probably put a nihilist to sleep.
You know that warm feeling you get when you find an old book – most likely a past favourite – and the jacket is coated in a thin canvas of dust? That’s
Powerplant. You nostalgically brush the dust off the cover, content in the knowledge that that-one-book-you-loved-as-a-kid is still there to keep part of you lodged in the past.
These songs hang loosely in the air somewhere distant. It’s a distance that is best kept, so you can continue to find the little eccentricities endearing rather than grating. Try the arbitrary fits and starts of
The Corner Store, as it explodes into a cloud of lo-fi fuzz before disappearing again like a laconic fairy godmother. Alas, it’s better to stay listening to it from your bedroom window, lest you let the moment creep under your skin.
Cleo and Harmony are now cognizant of their surroundings. Perhaps, the presence of a drummer this time around is forcing them to stay awake, to recognize possibilities both musical and behavioural (
“Why are you so stuck here? Look up from the ground”). Maybe it’s kicked the jangly guitars into overdrive (She Goes By, indeed. With urgency.), or maybe it’s just positioned them to visualise their problems (
“you’ll build him a tower/he’ll burn you a bridge”). Regardless, Powerplant is always threatening to take shape, to become something tangible, before falling back into un-formation as if its confidence was taken away on the wind.
Mostly, Girlpool are still content to sit on the edge of the bed and strum away idly until they find something mild-mannered and amicable. They fantasise about their own revolutions and revelations (
“I said I faked global warming just to get close to you”) and sing about things that
could happen. It’s why they’re so endearing – they’re dreamers making dreamlike sounds, swinging slowly between the castle in the air and the smoke that billows from the
Powerplant. They may one day leave the house and find resolve for every glimmer of doubt, for now though, I hope they’re fine with being the whisper my headphones make when I’m in repose.
