Girls Names

The Green Door Store, Brighton – 2nd November 2013

Having trawled their really rather fine second album most of the way around Europe in recent months, it is a healthily-busy Green Door Store that hosts Girls Names on the final date of their UK tour. Interestingly, there is a totally different audience in attendance from the one that usually graces the venue and happily there is a high female content in the mix. The Belfast four-piece seem to have cornered a niche of their own, which is no bad thing, after impressing this year with their change of direction which saw them dive into the post punk shadows with the appropriately named The New Life. And they look every bit the part as they clamber on to the stage: all four head to toe in black with trousers so skinny they would instantly render mere mortals lame and quite possibly infertile. Drummer Gib Cassidy even has the top button of his shirt done up which is highly commendable in the oppressive heat of the busy venue; it lasts two songs until he is forced to surrender and by the end of the night his shirt is virtually open to the navel, but the effort is much appreciated.

The New Life is a pleasing collection of atmospheric songs that touch a wide variety of bases without letting any of the obvious influences dominate. All are built on the foundations of Claire Miskimmin's uncomplicated, doomy basslines and Cassidy's motorik drumming which allow guitarists Philip Quinn and Cathal Cully to build intriguing edifices of sound, Quinn's work on occasion breathtakingly ornate and touchingly beautiful with Cully filling in the gaps and occasionally adding some cultured decoration of his own. With Cully's vocals rarely straining at the leash, this is refined stuff, yet still managing to bite, not the least when the band embark on their cover version of Eno's 'Third Uncle' which sits nicely among their own album tracks. It's an obvious reference point; the band's new single mirrors the artwork of Bowie's latest album, a look back at his time in Berlin, but though Girls Names tread the same streets, they do so secure in the knowledge that it has only ever been about guitars and always will be. In this respect they are walking a path that few other bands dare to follow and we look forward to future releases with growing excitement. The powerful thrash could have been a fine number on which to end the set, but the band manage go one better by following it with a bewitching, long version of 'The New Life' which rounds the evening off in appropriate style.

The band seem genuinely pleased with both the size of the audience and the reception they are receiving and Cully comments it has been the best night of the tour and that after the show they will be heading into town for some well deserved rest and relaxation. We can't imagine them partying hard but we can picture them partying well. And that's why Girls Names are definitely a band to watch.

Words Adam, Forgetting the camera Gary