Vivian Girls

TheOwlMag on Vivian Girls

Artist: Vivian Girls Album: Vivian Girls Label: In the Red Rating: Buy it >>

For a band barely out of their garage days, Vivian Girls have seen their Brooklyn cred rise faster than a glowing CMJ review. Oh wait, they just collected a heap of those, too. During their recent hectic tour schedule opening for such acts as Jay Reatard and The King Khan & BBQ Show, their self-titled debut was re-released recently thanks to insanely high demand. In May of this year, first pressings of this album sold out in 10 days. No lie. And while they’re spreading their damn near perfect punk wings in Brooklyn and elsewhere, Vivian Girls offers up a glimpse of the trio’s roaring punk-melody fusion found somewhere between Love is All (polished, manic) and Times New Viking (rough, unfiltered).

Their sound is traditional punk, but unconventional three-part harmony along with ’60s surf songwriting makes Vivian Girls essential listening. Their foray into Go-Gos glam and Vaselines-style guitar wonderment tackles an interesting cross-section of pop and punk. I don’t hear the crunching, wailing guitars as much as their eerily hypnotic vocals basting my eardrums with reverb-soaked pleasure, as highlighted in “Where Do You Run” and “Wild Eyes.”

Vivian Girls exposes a chant-like Velvet Underground shoegaze moment as “Tell the World” seeps from the sludge and drudge of Brooklyn’s dirtiest stretches of waterfront. But for me, the album doesn’t get any crisper, richer or better than “No.” Cassie Ramone’s screaming, repeating plea for “it” to end captures what might be the perfect moment in time on Vivian Girls.

- Review submitted by Carnie Fulton.

Pitchfork Best Albums on Vivian Girls

Album "Vivian Girls" scored 8.5

Vivian Girls, an all-women trio who've become overnight sensations among critics and underground rock fans, deliver a lively, lovable debut album that taps fashionable aesthetic wellsprings from Phil ...