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CMU Approved
Approved: Girl Friend
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 30 April 2015
It’s easy to dislike things, isn’t it? Sometimes you just look at a thing and think, “Phew, I’m not going to like that – so I can happily get on with my life without having to put any effort into drawing any joy from that particular thing at all”. But some things turn out to be good once you take a proper look, don’t they? And then you have the chore of enjoying them to deal with. Not that enjoying things is a chore. But, fucking hell, it’s a chore, isn’t it?
Anyway, my point, if I have one, is that I didn’t think I would like Girl Friend. But then I pressed play on their music anyway and it turned out that I did. Which, actually, despite what I said before, makes things more fun. I’ve had the same experience with the new Blur album. It’s a strange and confusing time.
The Manchester quartet (that’s Girl Friend now. Blur are from London, if anything) have released their new EP, ‘Arrive Alone, Leave Alone’. Through the medium of 80s synth-pop, they present a glamorous exterior undermined by frontman Amory Neish-Melling’s lyrics, which, as the EP’s title suggests, tend to paint him as someone struggling to find happiness behind that outer surface. And it works well – all the best pop is profoundly sad.
“I found it interesting to juxtapose the dour moods and fatal flaws, with almost clichéd views on style and glamour”, says Neish-Melling of lead track ‘Monte Carlo’. “To dress the misery in something beautiful. The experiences of sexual frustration and amorous longing are portrayed with a graceful exterior”.
You can catch the band headlining Club NME at Koko on 29 May, and you can listen to the EP in full here:
