What is going on here? Is this a band with a better second album than first? That very rarely happens.
Bands often spend years and years crafting and perfecting that first album—it’s made up of songs that they’ve been playing for their entire existence, and have been constantly tweaking. The second album is usually written on a tour bus, as the band’s trek across the nation makes them more and more jaded. To quote lyrical genius (and member of the unusual better-sophomore-LP club) Craig Finn, “I just can’t sympathize with your rock ‘n’ roll problems.”
But now that I think about it, it’s not hard to understand why Girls would be a band with a great second record. Album, the band’s first album, is all about drinking, drugs, and—you guessed it—girls. What do you get when a popular indie rock band goes on tour? A whole lot of booze, narcotics, and romance.
What sets Girls’ music apart is how relatable it is. When permanently strung out frontman Christopher Owens sings “They don’t like my boney body / They don’t like my dirty hair / Or the stuff that I say / Or the stuff that I’m on” in the chorus of “Honey Bunny,” the album’s opener, all you want to do is bromiserate with the dude—we’ve all been there in some way or another. The normal-guy rock star is a tough persona to pull off, but Owens does it beautifully. Father, Son, Holy Ghost is full of great rock songs that are made even better by the misery that we can all share within them.
Swole Ear 