Girlpool – Powerplant
“As a society I feel that we perceive softness and vulnerability as traits that are ‘weak’, and people emotionally disconnect themselves in order to avoid going through everything they feel,” explains Harmony Tividad. “I think that what is most important right now is empathy, and in order to have empathy we must first feel what we, ourselves, feel.” It’s no surprise then, that Girlpool’s sophomore record (and ANTI- debut) Powerplant blisters with the heat of the pair’s stripped-back emotions; a burn made all the more torrid as they are wedded with the sentiments the album coaxes from its listeners.
While Girlpool haven’t drifted from their characteristic vocal layering and bitter-sweet harmonising, Powerplant sees Tividad and bandmate Cleo Tucker give fresh adiposity to their sparse sonic stylings with a full band sound and fuzzy guitars. While on Before the World Was Big the pair used the bare bones of their vulnerability – the negative space between their vocal, between the notes they delicately play and the rest of the world – to convey as much as the musicality itself, Powerplant leaves no spaces to fill.
Indeed, though Tividad and Tucker’s voices remain foregrounded, and the heartbeat of these 12 songs, it seems now that the fullness of their instrumentation serves to reinforce the fullness of their sentiments, as opposed to highlighting the depth of their exposure. Ardently absorb all that there is to feel in this LP, and expect its lullaby-like melodies to draw from you that which is so deeply buried you don’t even know it exists.
Listen to: It Gets More Blue, Static Somewhere
Buy Girlpool - Powerplant on LP/CD from Norman Records