Whether or not it was a calculated ploy by Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls to gain quick notoriety, releasing their self-?titled debut LP a few months back in a limited 500-?copy pressing that sold out in 10 days worked remarkably well to stoke the hype.
But their take on a 60s girl group throwback concept isn’t quite as successful as all the blogger praise implies.
They’ve obviously heard enough of the Shangri-?Las, the Crystals and the Ronettes to roughly approximate some of the moves. But they have neither the Brill Building staff writers feeding them material nor anyone with the production/arrangement acumen of Shadow Morton or Phil Spector. So instead, they set their sights much lower and go for a Jesus & Mary Chain-?style wall of noise that somewhat covers up their vocal and lyrical shortcomings. They’ll be in for tough times unless they come up with something a little more unique and substantial.
Vivian Girls join Fucked Up tonight (Thursday, October 30) at Sneaky Dee’s.