Girl From Headquarters - Girl From Headquarters

  by Jamie Rowland

published: 15 / 3 / 2006

Label: Select Label
Format: CDS

intro

Impressively packaged art rock on Bristol's Dulcet Thud label from new art rock act the Girl from Headquarters

I really like Bristol’s Dulcet Thud label, because not only do they send me brilliant CDs, they send them to me in the most fantastic lo-fi, hand-made press booklets, all carefully folded and taped together to make a handy and informative guide to the promo I’ve received, as well as holding the CD itself in the back page. Genius! So yes, thank you Dulcet Thud. Now, to the EP itself. The Girl From Headquarters were originally made up of guitarist Steve, bassist Phill and drummer Jen. It soon became clear that Jen, a multi-instrumentalist, was,however, better placed on keyboards (and whatever other instruments she wanted to play) and so new drummer Tony was roped in. Finally, after months of searching for the perfect singer, the band was completed with the addition of Dan ‘Steveless’ Newman on vocals. The band have been getting fantastic live reviews and have been building quite a fan-base locally, and now they are ready to make their move on the rest of the UK. The band’s debut, self-titled EP is as good as the super-cool press booklet lead me to believe. Opener ‘Waking Up Alone’ sounds like the Fall would if Mark E Smith joined forces with Dick Dale, which apparently is just what he should do, because this sounds bloody great. This track is followed by the more rocking ‘On Reflection’, which kind of reminds me of ‘Angel Dust’-era Faith No More in its metal guitar and keyboard combination. There is also some impressive screaming from both Dan and Jen. ‘Choke’ sounds more like a mixture of modern rock, classic rock’n’roll and a 1950s B-movie soundtrack. In fact, the B-movie soundtrack feel seems to run through the whole EP to some extent; with what sounds like an organ and a Theremin opening track 4, ‘Something Prettier’. Newman’s vocal goes it’s most mental for this track, before smoothing out in the surfy chorus (which also has a nice jazzy bass-line). The EP is finished off with ‘A Worthless Man’; a real rock’n’roll stomp-along with some great ‘ba-ba’ backing vocals and more of that cracking surf-guitar, all topped off with a rocking chorus and crashing drums. This EP is fantastic, and I urge you to go out and buy it immediately. Although I really should say that at just under 15 minutes in length, it’s really not quite long enough for me – bring on the debut album!

Track Listing:-