Photo: Chiara Gambuto
There’s a delicate equilibrium happening in the songs of this British band. They’ve always made pop, but each album has been a refinement of the last, and on their latest, Prestige, every track is crammed with extremely earworm-ish hooks.
This kind of sugar rush can leave one feeling queasy pretty quickly, but the trio expertly balance it with a distinctly English sense of humour and deadpan affect, and the results are eminently hummable.
Girl Ray’s first album, Earl Grey, trafficked in jangly indie rock, and their second, Girl, leaned into mainstream pop. This third record takes its cues from disco; specifically the queer ballroom subculture of the 1980s.
Singer-songwriter Poppy Hankin was watching the TV drama Pose, which is set in that scene, and was drawn to learn more, eventually finding it had inspired her to write new types of song. There’s an element of homage happening on cuts like ‘Everybody’s Saying That’, and a lot more funk guitar, but the band’s personality is intact.
Hankin, bassist Sophie Moss and drummer Iris McConnell have been friends since school, and named the record after an in-joke, having used the word ‘prestige’ instead of the word ‘cool’ since they were teens. The singer has the kind of voice where I’m not sure it could sound excited if she tried, but her removed delivery fits these tracks perfectly, tamping down their excitement a bit, while staying cheerful.
The bulk of the album hits one tone repeatedly - fun and catchy - but does it extremely well. A left turn near the end called ‘Space Song’ switches things up, keeping the retro aesthetic but gaining a lot of gravity. Slowly it reveals itself as another great pop track.
American producer Ben Allen co-helmed most of the album in conjunction with Hankin, but for its final track the band handed the reins to Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Al Doyle, who house Girl Ray in their familiar buoyant aesthetic.
Much more electronic than anything else on the album, it also stretches out to nearly 8mins, and earns every moment. In fact the euphoria conjured here may point the way to another change of direction for Girl Ray, should they decide to go full dancefloor on album #4. But I suspect they’ll think of something more surprising.
