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BAD FRIDAY!
Peluché,
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The Windmill, Brixton
Good Friday, 14th April 2017
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Album Review

The Vivian Girls
Everything Goes Wrong In The Red Records

Article written by Ged M - Nov 7, 2009

Vivian Girls: Everything Goes Wrong

We should have reviewed this a month ago but at the time I was wandering through Italian olive groves, thinking of the organic ‘slow food’ to come that night, and the Vivian Girls on my iPod sounded too harsh and urban for those bucolic surroundings. Once I arrived back in London, to dirt, stress and fast food, then it all started to fit into place again.

Everything Goes Wrong is a better album than the self-titled debut. In a series of 13 mostly short songs, totalling just 31 minutes, they expertly mix punk-pop with a 60s girl group feel. There’s a common approach to many of these songs: taut and driven by furiously pounded drums, with a gleaming melody shining out of a forest of guitars. ‘When I’m Gone’ in particular is a supernova of fuzzy energy while ‘Before I Start To Cry’ grinds it out at half speed. In best girl group fashion, broken hearts and women scorned are common themes, from the scads of guitar colouring the bubblegum ‘You’re My Guy’ to the harmony soaked early rock’n’roll rhythms in ‘Double Vision’ lamenting: “he has another woman/ you’ll never be the best”. It’s dramatic, edgy and relentlessly rhythmic pop music, and yet another brilliant Brooklyn record.

Links:
http://www.intheredrecords.com/pages/viviangirls.html
http://www.myspace.com/viviangirlsnyc