If a debut album is meant to seize the youthful zeal and pressing, electrical vitality of a band within the early throes of their creativity, then Grrrl Gang’s ‘Spunky!’ is a really profitable debut album certainly.
The Jakarta-based trio of Angeeta Sentana, Edo Alventa and Akbar Rumandung could come from a spot distant from the normal centres of ’90s indie and punk music, however they’ve made a house for themselves there in spirit. Joyously spiky guitar riffs and effortlessly cool slacker vocals dominate this 25-minute dash of an album – however scratch the colourful, fizzing exterior and also you’ll discover darker forces inside.
Alventa’s muscular, thrusting guitars and searing suggestions on ‘Birthday Blues’ and ‘Higher Than Life’ set a fast tempo, however Sentana’s vocals reveal an internal life rife with existential challenges. “I’m a ineffective cum dump… I’m neurotic, manic, borderline psychotic,” she sings on the previous; on the latter she is “caged in my physique” and “flirting with demise, simply to see what it has to supply”.
Songs like ‘Impolite Awakening’ and ‘Cool Woman’ go on to articulate that counterintuitive sense of isolation and nervousness that emerges while you’re trapped in a big crowd of individuals having enjoyable (“I wanna tear my pores and skin aside/It by no means glows in the dead of night,” Sentana sings on the latter). It’s vital that these younger up-and-comers, from a rustic the place psychological well being conversations, in accordance with Sentana, stay taboo, have chosen to brazenly confront such private vulnerability.
‘Mom’s Prayer’ simmers with the sardonic, punk poetry cool of ‘Down by the Water’-era PJ Harvey, whereas the opening of the title observe is intentionally muffled, as if ripped from a handheld dwell recording. The instrumental observe ‘Tower Second’ serves because the report’s tipping level: the extremely relatable expressions of alienation and internal turmoil which have come earlier than are lastly purged and Alventa’s serrated guitar scrapes away the final shards of self-doubt, making room for wonderful redemption.
What follows, ‘Blue Stained Lips’, is Grrrl Gang’s daring shot at indie pop immortality, a candy and bitter melody for the ages boosted by tight, counterpoint backing harmonies. Right here, the band evoke Sleater-Kinney or The Vaselines, lastly welcoming within the pleasure that had been knocking on the door from the album’s begin. One ultimate main chord victory lap follows in ‘The Star’, and ‘Spunky!’ rides out a religious excessive that has been earned by affected person, delicate storytelling. Grrrl Gang’s music and sound is perhaps direct and uncomplicated, however ‘Spunky!’ is an emotionally refined album that means that Indonesia has its arms on some new stars.
Particulars:
- Launch date: September 22
- File label: Inexperienced Island Music/Kill Rock Stars/Trapped Animal/Huge Romantic
