gorgeous bully, the project led by Manchester-based Thomas Crang, are back with a new album, closure. The follow up to 2017’s great blue, the album sees gorgeous bully arrive with a newfound intensity, the usual lo-fi bedroom pop spiked with harder edges of punk and existential woe, and even moments of straight-out sincerity. As Crang describes:
closure deals with loss, love, trust and trying to staying afloat in a confused world. An ode to standing out on a cliff and looking out over, thinking about the rocks below but turning around and going back home and putting your demons to bed.
The album kicks off with ‘I’ll Be True’, a track reassuringly familiar for those of us who’ve grown fond of gorgeous bully over the years—the lo-fi guitar and slapped drums supporting Crang’s signature vocals. But if there is a change it’s in the lyrics, which are wide-eyed and hopeful, a pledge to a loved one. “I’ll be true,” Crang sings, “I’ll be kind,” and despite how he still sounds burned out, it’s hard not to believe him.
There’s a glimmering jangle to ‘Gum’, although that doesn’t alleviate the sense of weariness that pervades the track. The crunchy guitar that opens ‘Patience’ is like a metaphor for the whole album, a balance between the positive and not, catchy but with shades of something else. The rest of the song follows suit, a stomping indie rocker that tries to blow away the cobwebs of anxiety and doubt in just under three minutes. It’s a song about being stuck in a difficult place, about fighting day-to-day in the hope of improvement. About, ultimately, patience.
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gorgeous bully have always approached things with a kind of self-defeating resignation, what we’ve described previously as “music that doesn’t shy away from the pains and banalities of 21st century living, existing on the self-deprecating and misanthropic end of the spectrum. But somehow things remain catchy and fun.” closure is no dramatic departure from this, although there are definitely softer moments that shine through, the album maintaining a careful balance between lead-limbed ennui and a slow-burning sense that things are actually pretty okay.
‘Tripping’ is a good example, a song whose air of careful hope is tempered by a sense of self-sabotage, as Crang apes Oasis, singing “maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, but I keep tripping up myself.” And although the title of ‘Infinite Sadness’ feels like false advertising as soon as it sweeps you up in its manic energy, it still contains lines like “it’s a long time waiting to die when you’re at home,” a sure sign that gorgeous bully aren’t giving up on bummed-out pop songs just yet.
As its name suggests, ‘Can’t Give You Up’ is a song about struggling to let go of a relationship, while closer ‘Without You’ is perhaps the most sincere song gorgeous bully has ever written, an earnest declaration of dependence.
As daft as it seems, you are everything
and I could not sleep
unless you are next to me
and I couldn’t live without you now
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closure is out now on Breakfast Records, and you can get it via them or the gorgeous bully Bandcamp page.
