It takes exactly three listens to discover how truly terrible this album is, because the first two are mostly spent trying to recover from "Lust For Life," which is one of the best opening tracks to come out in a long, long time. On that third listen, you come back down to Earth and realize the truth.Music doesn't get more unoriginal than this. This is "indie" at it's fucking worst. This is what's killing music in general. Take a bunch of semi-obscure influences, sing in an ironically terrible voice, throw a vague West Coast surfer sound over it all, and give it an incredibly overused band name. (Allmusic alone cites eleven bands named Girls.) Bam. You've got yourself a hipster phenomenon.
Some of these songs are downright awful. "Summertime"? Listen to that song again. There is absolutely nothing likable about it. The chorus is terrible and you know it. "Hellhole Ratrace"? Seven minutes of the singer whining about living the life of a sad bohemian, despite the fact that his underground stardom is completely based off of this image. It's all just horribly transparent bullshit tailor-made for people who want something trendy and easy to digest.
And yet "Lust For Life" is simply fantastic. What a song. Just goes to show you how far a good hook will take you. Hell, it fooled me into liking the whole damn album for months now.
