Were Kurt Cobain alive today, he would probably be declaring Girlpool the greatest band in the world and name-dropping them to fame. The Nirvana singer loved riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill and obscure British indie groups such as the Raincoats – and those sounds seem to have inspired this Los Angeles duo.
For a pair who didn’t expect to leave the LA underground scene, and whose self-titled debut EP began life as a homemade cassette before being re-released by Wichita, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad must be happy with their progress to date. The outbreak of giggles that overcomes them when they try to count in tonight’s final number, Cherry Picking, seems to confirm this.
Written for electric and bass guitars and two shrill voices, Girlpool’s songs are sparse, needling, angular and caustic – they could be Marine Girls gone grunge, or First Aid Kit raised on Sleater-Kinney. Even if their material sounds like extended intros awaiting drums that never crash in, their purist aversion to clutter places intense focus on their lyrics, which are rawer than a pair off freshly skinned knees. Plants and Worms, Ideal World and Paint Me Colours are misfit anti-anthems about self-empowerment, boredom, anger and the intense sexual and romantic desires and discomforts of youth.
Girlpool’s short set largely eschews the shrieks and Marmite effect of material such as Blah, Blah Blah in favour of the unconventionally melodious likes of Chinatown and Emily. It is best to think of the singers less as a band without a rhythm section than as a duo doing an amped-up, confrontational take on the singer-songwriter genre – which they also seem capable of doing on more polite terms. When they resist their natural instinct for abrasion with a show-stopping harmony-drenched cover of Radiator Hospital’s Cut Your Bangs, Tucker and Tividad show they can do “pretty” just as well as harsh.
