“Vomit”
from the album Father, Son, Holy Ghost
2011
iTunes
Girls’ most obvious attraction is Christopher Owens’ voice. It’s vulnerable and wounded and infused with drama, but also friendly. He sounds like that friend who always has problems he wants to tell you about, but he does so in such a pure and honest way that you always have time for him. As a band, Girls build outward from Owens’ singing, constructing music that feels like the natural and true setting for his musings. But something overlooked about their approach is how they manage to handle genre in weird and effective ways. Their songs seem to comment on music history — 1950s sock-hop ravers, folky ballads, jittery new wave — while simultaneously using that knowledge to their advantage. This winning strategy continues with “Vomit,” which begins with a hushed strum and twists and turns and builds over its six-and-a-half minutes, folding in gospel wails, an acid-fried guitar solo, and organ stabs right out of Muscle Shoals. Girls have quickly become experts at these types of cresting epics, and “Vomit” falls in line with previous clock-busters “Hellhole Ratrace” and “Carolina.” Then you realize the abundance of musical ideas and instruments and colors is used to support a refrain that goes, simply, “Come in to my heart, my love.”