Feature by Erin Christie
Riding on the coattails of releasing their sophomore record The Talkies (released September 27 via Rough Trade Records), post-punk trailblazers Girl Band headed out on tour with support from Brooklyn-based Model/Actriz, making at stop at Allston, MA’s Great Scott on Friday, October 4.
Another key Irish post-punk export, Girl Band — Dara Kiely (vocals), Alan Duggan (guitar), Daniel Fox (bass), Adam Faulkner (drums) — has stood tall among their peers since their debut. The Talkies is the band’s first album in four years — with such a significant time to wrack up a release to follow 2015’s Holding Hands with Jamie — a record that truly challenges the idea of genre, of what “post-punk” or even “rock” can be or become — it was imperative that the band made a bang with whatever came next. With this record considered, they clearly didn’t have to try too hard.
Surrounded by a gaggle of blundering, thirty-something-year-old white men (with or without a head of hair), Kiely launched himself back and forth, dipping his mic stand in front of the audience and grasping onto it for dear life. As songs came and went throughout the set, he would glance at his right wrist, as if checking the time on some nonexistent watch, to double-check the setlist written in black ink on the back of his hand.
“Pears for Lunch,” the first song the band played, introduced the crowd to Kiely’s scream-sing style. Tweed jacket and striped button up-clad, as if he was a businessman coming off a long 9-5 at the office, hearing such a power-packed voice come out of him could be jarring.
With each bellow, he takes in a sharp breath, preparing to bear his absolute soul, let alone potentially lose his voice. With Duggan, Fox, and Faulkner expertly handling their respective instruments, Kiely’s devilish cries are accompanied by melodic mayhem in a way that’s somehow pleasing to the ears.
It goes without saying, but even without 100% knowing every lyric, if you scream along in relative succession, you’re still able to add to the atmosphere.
For a majority of the set, the crowd was surprisingly still, which felt awkward considering the abundance of energy being laid out across the stage before us—was it the haze provided by the alcohol, the abysmal weather? As “Shoulderblades” began about half-way into the set, though, the crowd finally began to swell and the mass of bodies packed into the dingy club began to move with ferocity unprecedented. A beer or two may have spilled, adding to the thick layer of dried alcohol already present from shows past.
A rendition of The Early Years EP’s “The Cha Cha Cha,” a just about 30-second track that proceeds in a rapid, noisy display of instrumentation, prompted one audience member to shout, “10 more of those!” Soon after, though, one of the amps started to smoke and it appeared as though the band was down for the count. After roughly ten minutes, an interlude filled with an eclectic amount of contemporary radio hits, the band was just as lethally aggressive as before, as if rejuvenated with a new purpose to finish their set and tell this small crowd their tale.
Both on record and in a live setting, Girl Band creates an absolute sensory overload, combining near-deafening screeching and what might sound like a 90s computer monitor crashing with utter poetry. They’re experts at conveying emotion — from mania to panic to the occasional calm — and after witnessing them live, there’s only one emotion that comes to mind: euphoria.
