Send "The vivian girls " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Good ol' brevity-- the soul of wit and arguably the Vivian Girls' greatest asset on their 2008 debut LP. That record honored some obvious predecessors-- C86, Slumberland, and K Records to name a few-- but just as importantly, it realized that those scenes had a thing for collector's items and myth-making. Starting off with a 22-minute-long LP that was originally limited to 500 copies, Vivian Girls seemed like the kind of band that would nail it the first time, flame out, and then disappear forever. Except they didn't. Everything Is Wrong wasn't a huge drop-off, but the reception to it was muted, suggesting that they may have started to outstay their welcome. Lo-fi was quickly becoming cliché (again) and with their seemingly endless array of guest spots, side projects, and offshoots, Vivian Girls were adding to the glut of bands doing something very similar.I'd say they're acknowledging this situation on Share the Joy by trading brevity for novelty: Opener "The Other Girls" clocks in at six and a half minutes, over two of which are filled up with guitar soloing. It's certainly an audacious move for a band that had previously constructed a song with just one word ("No") and drew battle lines about whether technical competency-- let alone proficiency-- mattered in indie rock. But is it a good song? Not really. It never really builds toward much of anything, and Cassie Ramone isn't even noodling-- her fretboard runs are flat and stiff as dry spaghetti. But it's a fitting introduction to Share the Joy, an album that's more admirable for its willingness to stretch than its execution. It's a record saddled with contradictions-- though it's their most uneven in terms of songwriting, the diversity oddly gives it more potential replay value than their prior records. Recorded at the home studio of Woods' Jarvis Taveniere, Share the Joy borrows that band's ambling tempos, rustic instrumentation, and frazzled guitar lines. But the breathing room often puts Vivian Girls in an unflattering mid-fi space, one neither slick enough to polish their imperfect pitch or buzzy enough to hide it....full text |
| Reviler |
| It can be difficult to gain a balanced perspective on an album after reading a single summary of the music. Bias can tilt a review, as can personal taste, history and just about everything else that is unique to the person writing it. So in an effort to offer an expanded perspective in such a medium, here are four reactions, four impressions, Four Takes on Share the Joy by Vivian Girls....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| With the rest of Share the Joy still to come, “The Other Girls” raises some serious questions about Vivian Girls. Or maybe it just makes us smirk- a line as forward as “I don’t wanna be like the other girls” spouted first-thing on the newest record from one of many fuzz-pop, all-female bands is gonna do just that, isn’t it? It feels sort of like a direct nod to all the stuff that went down last year in this genre, whether it was Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast or the ever-boyish Wavves, like an adamant refusal to be tagged in a genre where it’s becoming all too easy to be one or another. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend who asked me, “why Vivian Girls? They’re women!” and, well, you can imagine how I rose my all too indie eyebrow and responded no, Women released Public Strain. Not that I lent that record to explain, but this outburst of geekery is the sad truth; all this fuzzy stuff got more and more diluted to the point where we forgot where Vivian Girls stood. Their last studio album surfaced just as the fuzz-revival craze well and truly hit off, and with that little teasing line kick-starting their time in 2011, it feels foolish to forget how Vivian Girls are kind of seniors in this genre. As much as one can be a senior after three years of records, right? Even if, in all honesty, they don’t act like seniors. Nor do they seem to dislike any of the bands around them the way “The Other Girls” might imply on paper. The song is nothing but pleasant, and more so because it doesn’t have any of the biting noise we’d get with Vivian Girls or Everything Goes Wrong. It sounds as it should: a nice way of the trio announcing that there can be a song like “Where Do You Run To” without the stigma that surrounds it. “The Other Girls” is a relief to anyone who couldn’t quite get to grips with Vivian Girls in 2008/9 respectively, because it takes what we always knew about them- that they love girl group pop and punk, and know how to play both- but doesn’t force us to extract from the fuzz....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| There was a brief period of time where Glasvegas were technically an indie band, releasing scrappy little 7" singles and getting praise for their demos, but they never had much interest in acting or sounding like one. Their skyscraping, Rich Costey-produced debut from 2008 was proof enough of that, and now their second album, EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK , removes all doubts as to whether they'd ever look back. The title alone promises a thrill ride spanning the poles of human emotion, rendered in all caps as if to say, "your feelings must be this tall to ride." Problem is, that sort of heavy-handedness is indicative of their operation in all other aspects, and with every second attempting to be the most cathartic, EUPHORIC simply numbs you with 50 minutes of novocaine for the soul. Glasvegas started out applying principles of Spector's Wall of Sound, but on EUPHORIC, they mostly do away with the pop and fill the void with bombast. The resulting sound forfeits empathy and intimacy and makes the listener feel like just another chump in the cheap seats. If you've got a taste for messianic flag-waving, EUPHORIC can pack an intermittent, fleeting buzz, but they're ultimately harshed by Glasvegas' soggy musicianship: Frothy with echo, guitars well and crest, synthesizers ooze gelatin, and the rhythm section doesn't make any sudden movements. And it's all captured with monolithic monotony by Flood who, fresh off his vibrant production of Pains of Being Pure at Heart's Belong, wasn't challenged to deliver anything but the banal reverb-crank bands lean on to conjure the sound of ambition where none really exists. In the past, Glasvegas benefited from the "write what you know" topicality on career highlights "Daddy's Gone", "Stabbed", and "Flowers and Football Tops", but here James Allan tries to feel everyone's pain and delivers the sort of pat universality you'd expect from songs with names like "You", "Change", and "Shine Like Stars". Camped out in a Santa Monica beach house and inspired by a viewing of Thelma & Louise (dead serious), Allan penned the vaguely lesbian soap opera "Whatever Hurts You Through the Night" but even without that origin story, it's easy enough to chuckle at the lyrics that read like cheesecake video narration ("I see you in the night walking past my house/ I wonder if you feel the same as I do")....full text |
| Nme |
| Get James Allan going on the lyrics of his band’s second album, and you’ll find it hard to get him stopped. Ask him to describe its sounds, though, and he’s consistently responded with just one phrase: “like a dream”. That those three little words are the key to this richly complicated, exhilaratingly vital album is clear from its first moments. Chilly, pale fingers of synth reach out and sweep like searchlights, and a voice intones in French: “Souffrance, vous n’avez jamais existé”. It’s a slow counting-under into the sometimes obscure, hazy, dazzlingly ornate dreamworld of ‘Euphoric/// Heartbreak’, first cloaked in another language and then beneath layers of glowing reverb as Allan begins to repeat the words, in English, in a hypnotist’s whisper. ‘Pain, Pain, Never Again’ is as dense, as grandiose, as sci-fi Vangelistic an opening as you might have expected from January’s NME cover, on which Allan appeared with Roy’s dying soliloquy from Blade Runner daubed over his bare chest, the final words changed from ‘time to die’ to ‘time to live’. If that clue hinted at the ‘heartbreak’ of the album’s title that headlines were subsequently to spell out, here, if you’re listening closely, Allan addresses it, and his sister and manager, face on: “Denise, Denise, look at the swan that sails…” he hisses. “And a triumphant me and you, again and again and again… the end credits naming us as the majestic escapists of cocaine”....full text |
| Musicomh |
| The title of the follow up to 2008's self titled debut, Glasvegas, couldn't be more apt; while there are glimmers of hope, it's an over-riding sense of gloom that again characterises the record. From the opening track Pain Pain Never Again, a muffled spoken word intro which rings bells with the debut album's Stabbed, the band seem unwilling to let go of the despair they built their name on. But, thanks either to the influence of super-producer Flood or a few years out to mature and cheer themselves up a but, there are some moments of genuine euphoria. Pain Pain Never Again gives way to The World Is Yours, which is easily their best song to date. It's hard to make out what the very very Scottish James Allan is singing about, but the gorgeous pounding drums, courtesy of new drummer Jonna Lofgren, and soaring synths make for an atmospheric, Bloc Party-eqsue belter. Synths dominate Euphoric /// Heartbreak, but crunching, fuzzy guitars are never too far away, and they sound more like The Jesus and Mary Chain than ever. The theme continues with Shine Like Stars which is lyrically almost unnervingly cheerful: "Yesterday my happiness seemed so far away, now it looks like its here to stay," sings Allan. He's careful not to let things get too jolly though, and there's a pleading, desperate twinge to his vocals. The result is a gorgeous, melancholic mix of pummelling synths and crunching guitars....full text |
The vivian girls lyrics
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