Fortuna Pop!
So many groups emerge from garages and lay down riffs on buzzing guitars. Although September Girls aren’t that much different their strength lies in layering harmonies with a shoegaze sound and enhancing the melancholy feel with a few cheery melodies. They do a darn good job of it making Cursing The Sea some great ear candy.
This Dublin-based five-piece girl band bears remarkable resemblance to their four-piece American sisters Dum Dum Girls. And there’s no doubt that the greatest shoegaze bands of old (i.e. Jesus and Mary Chain) influenced them as well.
The guitars fill the space with noisy presence while the drums come in at an angle with steady and driving rhythm. The overall mix is well done; each instrument and effect is in perfect equilibrium. In the songwriting there’s a balance of deliberate composition and spontaneous inflection that makes the album feel raw without feeling improvisational.
While no song on the album particularly stands out as the hit single there are some excellent moments where the girls give you hauntingly dark stories like “Ships” and cheery giving-up-on-love songs like “Something New.” No matter what there’s a steady rhythm and overdriven jangle that makes the album worth listening to over and over.
