Despite their name, Girls In Hawaii are neither from Hawaii nor girls; they’re two pairs of brothers from Belgium. Formed in the early 2000s, they spent the best part of two decades building a devoted following across Europe with their brand of melancholy, lush, atmospheric indie pop/rock.
Then they went quiet. Their last album, ‘Nocturne’, came out in 2017, and aside from a sold-out 20th anniversary tour in 2023, they’ve been largely absent, until now.
‘Eldorado’, eerily dreamy and slow-burning, is the title track and second single from their long-awaited sixth album, out in September.
It’s the kind of melancholic indie rock that gets its hooks in quietly: soft, layered vocals, acoustic guitars that gradually give way to something bigger and more confronting, arrangements that take their time and tend to reward it.
It’s lulling in a way that’s also faintly unsettling, which appears to be very much the point. “This song tells the story of a quest for an unattainable ideal, constantly shaken by human fragility and the doubt we carry within ourselves”, the band explain.
“In the end”, they go on, “we accept the deal that is given: to keep searching, because perhaps that is, deep down, what drives us forward”.
The video, weirdcore animation with a ‘Truman Show’ on acid type narrative, underlines it nicely.
🎧Watch the video for ‘Eldorado’ below