Cry Babe is a Portland, Oregon trio consisting of Anaïs Genevieve, Madaline Putney and Rose Reinholz. Back in 2019 we wrote about their debut release, “Be Cool”, describing how the songs combined candid and snarling tones and offered a maximalist vocal approach that gave the songs real nuance and life. Think “somewhere between a soulful and timeless lilt and a Mitski-style loud-quiet crunchy indie rock,” we wrote, the vocals “morphing from soft and dreamy to powerful yelp.”
This summer sees the release of Farther Away, a full-length Cry Babe album, and one which shows a clear evolution from the earlier release. The trio have embraced the dark, heavier side of their sound, a new commitment that extends right down to the metal typography of the artwork. The spirit set out on “Be Cool” is still present—the vocal range, the clever writing—but now everything is delivered with a newfound weight.
Take lead single ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’. Opening with a doom-laden stagger, the track brings to mind the likes of Yowler‘s Black Dog in My Path, though from within this sluggish mass rise small channels of lightness and energy. The vocals are crooned and clear, and capable of dragging the drums into a frantic rhythm that attempts to escape the consuming dark of the rest of the sound. The feat is never quite achieved, every acceleration matched by a new deep dark lull, but nevertheless, there are moments of release in the crescendos.
This effect is perhaps unsurprising given the inspiration of the track. “The name came about because our lead singer wanted a title that would let anyone know what the song was about,” they explain. “So we went with an homage to one of our favourite movies, whose starring actor, Sheila Vand, has coincidentally seen our band perform.” That is Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, a film which inverts its own title to present a protagonist not only able to walk alone in the dark, but to flourish there.
