Sep. 09, 2009 - Issue #725: Sex in the City 2009
Vivian Girls
Vivian Girls {recordings_bands_mg} Vivian Girls {/recordings_bands_mg}
, Vivian Girls
4
One of the ongoing debates of science is to what extent we can come up
with what might be described as biological laws: the worlds of chemistry and
physics seem to our modern eyes to very much follow set patterns, predictable
enough if we know the state from which they start. It would stand to reason
that biology should probably be similar, but that also gets us wading into a
whole lot of philosophical debates that make people uneasy: to use but the
example of, say, genetic determinism, what kind of free will can we really be
said to have if it's possible to determine the physical and psychological
make-up of a person from a collection of nucleic acids?I'm not nearly qualified enough to offer any kind of solid opinion of that kind of debate, but I think a case can be made for our everyday lives being governed by what we consider purely scientific principles. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, for instance: Barack Obama inspires a youth group to finally engage in politics, and an older group to decry him as a terrorist and a fake, as an example. Or, for one more relevant to the music section, in the same time that aurally intricate and musically innovative indie bands are in their ascendancy—think Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend if you don't put too much stock in that last descriptor—along come a trendy gaggle of bands who trade in fairly simple instrumentation and screeching, fuzzy distortion—think No Age, Wavves and of course Vivian Girls.
Last year's self-titled debut set up the all-female trio as punkily optimistic, inspired to tell the world about the good times they were having to dirty guitars and a relentless rhythm section. Their follow-up, Everything Goes Wrong, takes a decidedly more disillusioned turn while also filling out their sound. The latter could hardly be classified as any great leap, but the overall thematic unity is a welcome step for a band that's purposely fairly straightforward, putting a little more art into their punk.
A break-up album where the mood is an awful lot more "aw fuck it" than "what have I lost?" Everything Goes Wrong runs the gamut between bratty kiss-offs and frustration at not being able to escape an ex's pull. The former includes the bitingly sarcastic "You're My Guy," about a friend whose benefits aren't making up for his insensitivity, and "I Have No Fun," a semi-bitter turn-around of a lover's criticism. The latter represent some of the best stuff on the album, including the relatively expansive and noodly "Set Out for the Sun," which asks "why do I wait around for this one?" before bursting into an extended, distorted fury, and the decidedly more to-the-point opener "Walking Alone at Night," where singer/guitarist Cassie Ramone wanders in a catchy daze, reprimanding herself for ever caring about the one who got away.
There's plenty more, from the openly hurt break-up song "Survival" to the moodily sparse and surprisingly sinister "I'm Not Asleep," all of it adding up to an album that manages to infuse crashing and fuzz with a very vulnerable emotional core. It's not the kind of delicate touch that can really pull your heart strings, but it might be a perfect album to put on while you're walking home pissed off. V
Vivian Girls
Everything Goes Wrong
(In the Red)
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