Girl Band – ‘Shoulderblades’
Buckle up, this is not for the faint-hearted.
In true Girl Band fashion, Ireland’s best band have released the sonic nightmare that is ‘Shoulderblades’. It’s the first taster of their upcoming second album The Talkies. It’s a six-minute epic of vicious, demonic and terrifying noise. If that’s not enough to prick your ears, watch the video. It’s guaranteed to scare the shit out of you.
‘Shoulderblades’ begins with Dara Kiely’s tormented moaning over fuzzy noise by Alan Duggan’s guitar. It builds and builds with intensity, adding a swung beat by Adam Faulkner’s drums. They sound electric at first, and then he adds the boom of the kick whilst Duggan favours swelling guitar noises and Kiely screams like a man possessed. At around the three-minute mark, a bass-sounding drone comes in with percussive cracks, eventually adding creaming guitar noises, just to make sure you feel like you’re in a sci-fi horror film even more. ‘Shoulderblades’ is industrial sounding with lo-fi elements, but it is well produced and mixed by bassist Daniel Fox.
‘Shoulderblades’ is a landscape of carefully constructed noise and stream of conscious lyrics. It’s tormenting, electrifying, but most of all, it’s mesmerising. This is music for the adrenaline junkie, the horror film buff. Any fan of Girl Band or experimental music will live this. I can’t get enough – I want more.
Words by Matthew Brocklehurst