Girl Friday - Androgynous Mary Review
in order to be more successful in their next effort, they’ll have to push the sonic boundaries and hone their sound – something of which they’re more than capable
Delayed by months due to the pandemic, Androgynous Mary is the debut album for LA based foursome Girl Friday. Spanning several alternative rock sub-genres from post-punk to surf rock to some more traditional, if angsty, indie rock, it’s clear that the band refuses being pegged as one specific genre label. However, I feel that this is a hindrance as much as a help, meaning the album’s sequencing lacks organic flow in some places. It also means they’re unable to explore fully, stifling any experimentation and holding them back from establishing themselves within any particular sounds or styles. Though there are some really strong individual tracks here, coupled with impressive songwriting, the album feels disappointingly unmemorable.
The opener, ‘This Is Not the Indie Rock I Signed Up For’, is sombre given placement in the track list. Its role is more akin to a closing track. While I like their movement away from traditional song structure, devoid of chorus, and its inclusion of lyrics such as “How great is your faith if it keeps you up?”, the song ultimately sounds ironically like traditional melancholy indie rock up until the chaotic climax of noise before the last verse. Bringing this back smoothly to accommodate for the gentle vocals is another impressive feat. Going into the second track, ‘Amber’s Knees: A Matter of Concern’, is rather jarring, as we jump straight into an upbeat sound of garage rock and surf-rock influences. For me, this is a difficult style with which to innovate but the interesting lyrics, which seem to discuss the way that we become so used to the perpetual stimulation of media despite its tendency to be quite depressing, keep the track afloat with enough promise.
From here, a pattern emerges where the tracks, namely ‘Eaten Thing’, ‘Public Bodies’ and ‘What We Do It For’, offer a run-of-the-mill angsty indie track for the first three minutes before springing to life for the last minute. While this allows for quite an interesting song structure, the only one of these where I feel that the payoff is worthwhile is ‘Public Bodies’. Living up to the name of the album, the vocals sound androgynous, inhabiting the lower reaches of the singer’s range. The melody of this track is also probably the strongest of the three. This is coupled with lyrics taking an intriguing storytelling approach: “All these bodies ‘round here seem to be ageing too fast/If you want your independence, then you trade your health for cash”. The themes explored here are really engaging, telling of a broken American dream where you need to give everything up to live the high life. Altogether, it ends up as my favourite track on this album.
‘Earthquake’ forms the centrepiece of the album as the heaviest and catchiest track on the record. It is sorely disappointing then that its execution is so lacklustre. The vocal performance, while achieving an angsty sound, falls rather flat and the instrumental, while fun and tightly performed, brings nothing new or unique to this grungier style. It must be said that the drums here are strong throughout, serving as some light in the darkness. But the true saving grace is the poetic lyricism, exploring a will for an escape. The transition into ‘Clotting’ is interesting, with a very similar guitar melody to ‘Earthquake’, but slowed down and in minor key. This track offers the most vulnerable vocals, fitting for one of the more introspective on the list. However, it suffers from another lack of uniqueness in an oversaturated alternative rock scene.
The last three tracks, ‘Gold Stars’, ‘Favorite Friend’ and ‘I Hope Jason Is Happy’, struggle with the same issues but it’s now more frustrating with far fewer redeeming qualities — the latter two being easily the least memorable from the entire album. ‘Gold Stars’, while offering nothing especially novel, at least brings a catchy riff throughout its opening two minutes of the song. Unfortunately, it lacks the vocals to match. These rather forgettable tracks culminate in a disappointing close to an album which, up until this point, did have a lot of redeeming qualities.
While the lyrics throughout this album are often truly deft and interesting, Androgynous Mary struggles to find a unique niche for people to return to in such a highly saturated music scene. It’s great to see an all-girl group doing their thing, as pretty much every rock scene seems to be very much dominated by men but, in order to be more successful in their next effort, they’ll have to push the sonic boundaries and hone their sound — something of which they’re more than capable. Their experiments with song structure and forays into different sub-genres are testament to this and I only wish this project had been more tightly focused.
