Goat Girl - Below The Waste Review
Goat Girl break themselves down to rebuild into something new and hopeful.
It would not have been a surprise had the dry, sardonic wit that saw Goat Girl beat up perverts and burn politicians on their first two albums turned into something darker, given the challenges the band have faced in the three years between second album On All Fours and Below The Waste, the group’s latest release. The South Londoners have overcome addiction, an abusive relationship, serious illness and the resignation of a bandmate in those intervening years.
Below the Waste is the sound of a group grappling with everything that has been thrown at them and using it to break themselves down to build back up again. The record’s 16 songs were stitched together over several sessions by John Murphy (Lankum, Black Midi). Each song went through several iterations as the three multi-instrumentalists worked to fill the gap left by guitarist Ellie Rose Davies’ departure from the group. Disjointed, grungy riffs, skittish electronics and booming synths are all tried out, sometimes repeating the same hook as if they could not decide on the best vehicle for the sound so instead chose to weave them together, giving the album the sound of a collage, cut and pasted to create a whole that is full of the emotions the band have been through.
The pace of much of the record is slow and melancholic, authentic lyrics delivered in a matter of fact ennui. “tcnc” (short for take care, not crack) is an isolating account of drummer Rosy Jones’ battle with crack addiction driven by unsettling, overbearing synths. “Words Fell Out” is about the helplessness their friends felt in the face of their addiction. Yet there are also moments of joy, humanity and friendship that place the band somewhere near graduates from the same South London scene, Shame, whose third album Food for Worms also covered addiction but centred around relationships, mostly with friends.
Single “motorway” is the sound of the group at their closest, huddled in a car, over warm synths - content and minimalist, they note the changes that inevitably happen each day. There may have been the temptation to make this record grim and downbeat, instead Goat Girl sound reassured they are on the right track - they may find themselves on a “Road to nowhere” but they’re confident it leads to a better place.