album: Polyglamorous - Girls Club

words: Matt Latham

Fuzz bass and sparkles sounds like it should be an ice cream flavor or a children’s TV cop show about a grizzled musician and an enthusiastic unicorn that solve crimes against magic (bear with me as I copyright that idea). What it is, in fact, is how Girls Club describe their genre of music and it’s accurate.

A duo of bass guitars duel for control over the body of the songs on the band’s latest EP, Polyglamorous. They give the songs a lot of chunky substance and manipulate the tempo of the entire EP. The drum provides the structure of the tracks, while the songs are sweetened off by the sparkle team of the synths and vocals. This synth/bass battle help provide a lot of variety throughout the seven songs on this EP. From the shouts of riot girl rock to late 00s synth rock, the EP goes from Ladytron to Nirvana in one go. There’s plenty of Julie Ruin-era Kathleen Hanna and Jemina Pearl influence all here.

Urban Dictionary, of all places, has three entries for “polyglamorous” and they’re all very similar (and surprisingly clean). It’s a word to describe something of many positive qualities and to be packed with charisma. I’d say this EP was named appropriately.