Music Review: Before the World Was Big

4/5 stars

Knowing little about Girlpool, I really approached their new album, "Before the World Was Big," blind. To fill you in, Girlpool is a semi-punk rock girl duo composed of Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad, hailing from Los Angeles but now living in Philadelphia. And in the spirit of Lorde and young female musicians everywhere, they released their 2014 EP “Girlpool” at the ripe age of eighteen. Their sophomore album enters music scene now as they're year wiser, making for interesting music. Girlpool is at times angsty “I just have feelings” music and coming-of-age, wistful melodies. They are at their strongest when they showcase their fresh, honest lyrics, embracing their bare-bones musical style.

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The album’s first track,“Ideal World” is slowly paced, a hint of what’s to come. The first sound you hear is the strumming guitar and the haunting words, “I thought I found myself today, no one’s noticed, things are okay.” The simplicity of the track and the just-barely-discordant-you-almost-missed-it chords make this a strange choice for an album’s first track, but a fitting one for Girlpool. It knocks you off guard with the group’s willingness to lay it all bare, both instrumentally and lyrically. When the song reaches its chorus, if you can call it that, with the line “tranquilize me with your ideal world,” you’ll be hooked.

The song the group seems to have hyped up the most was actually my least favorite. “Before the World was Big,” the album’s title track, starts off catchy but quickly becomes too screamy. It tries to be an anthem to a lost youth, but it tries too hard. Tucker and Tividad layer their vocals one over the other in a sort of musical round gone awry. The lyrics are whiny at best—“Mom and Dad I love you, do I show it enough?”—and what should be the song of the album becomes a reminder of Girlpool’s weaker tendencies.

The rest of the album plays as middle ground between the catchy simplicity of “Ideal World” and the screamy, complaining aspects of “Before the World was Big.” Many are slow and lilting with lyrics that will take you by surprise in their poetry. The girls seem to play down their youth, if anything, and this works to further their more adult themes.

But one song encompasses all their charm perfectly—”Chinatown.” The song is just as at home in a coffee shop as it would be in a ‘90s prom slow dance movie scene. The girls are just their age in their lyrics, describing a budding relationship in honest language that any 19-year-old girl can relate to. The refrain of the guitar plays in a soothing way, only dramatizing lyrics like, “If I told you I loved you, would you take it the wrong way?” and “Do you feel restless when you realize you’re alive?”