Post War Glamour Girls Debut Single, Review

Post War Glamour Girls

Spitting Pearls / Ode To Harry Dean

Sturdy Records

Post War Glamour Girls formed around a year ago in Leeds and this is their debut single on Sturdy Records, also home of The Wind Up Birds.

It’s always a good start when 30 seconds in I’m thinking; there’s nothing else on my ‘to review’ pile that’s going to sound like this. ‘Spitting Pearls’ is a sprawling, subterranean claw through queasy Nick Cave atmospherics, superb dynamics twisting the dark, looping tale round to an epic, screaming conclusion. It takes a few turns to get your mind around what is actually happening, so odd in its construction that it’s hard to know where it is going, a real horrorshow descent into some form of madness.

The flipside is ‘Ode To Harry Dean’ which starts off as a far more discordant beast, crunching, fire and brimstone ranting driven by rumbling tom and snare crashes and super fuzzed up lead guitar. And then it’ll cut to a sweet vocal and guitar part. And with 4 minutes down it cuts to something else that could even be described as an anthemic chorus. It works though. Similarly to SP it’s a journey, unorthodox structures surprising at every turn and it takes a while to settle in. So, a bizarre combo leaving us with; an in-your-face-slow-burner. I’ll take that.

There’s a lovely reverberating sound across the record - plucks and clicks and ghostly backing vocals - mixed with over distorted drums and crunching, abrasive vocals. It’s a massive, full sound that benefits from repeated listens. So, if you splash out for the limited edition 7”, I can assure you, it won’t be one of those that gets played once and sits on the shelf. Post War Glamour Girls just keep drawing you back for more, albeit in a rather sinister and disturbingly pleasing manner.

Dean Freeman

PWGG BANDCAMP