“I’m sure the music world has long had it’s own version of [Vonnegut’s] Girl Pool. Picking up where Bikini Kill et al. left off, Girlpool’s music seems like a reaction against this… Coupling lyrics of everyday feelings with high-pitched screams of frustration, they come across not as hyper-realistic freedom fighters, but as real people with a just cause, people growing bolder with every small success, people ready to stand up for what is right”

But frustrated screaming is a tiring business, especially when it has little effect. Perhaps this is why their début album, Before The World Was Big, sees the duo take a new direction, swapping out the aggressive energy for wide-eyed sincerity, a yearning for simpler times where big issues passed over oblivious heads. This simplicity is present both musically and lyrically, with sparse instrumentation employing a minimal number of chords used to support their conversational vocals. And that’s conversational in subject and tone, with delivery ranging from hushed intimate whispers (e.g. on ‘Dear Nora’)  to chipper, excited babbling (‘Before The World Was Big’). The effect is something alluringly childish, a return to the (pre-)adolescent values of happiness, friendship and trust which lots of adults would do well to aspire to. Opener ‘Ideal World’ sets this up, acting as a bridge from the previous Girlpool releases by declaring the aims and intentions of the new record and giving context to the new direction:

“I was taught what to believe,
now I’m only certain that no one is free.
Tranquillise me with your ideal world”

The title track faces this directly, admitting a boredom with familiar surroundings and pining for a time when expectations were lower, when the idea of being bored or stuck in a dull town didn’t occur, when time was marked by board games and bath times and candy bars. But this is not one of those twee bands that uses juvenile imagery ironically. Girlpool aren’t saying we’re-so-cool-we-can-even-be-cool-playing-with-dolls. Rather, they’re saying that their minds are scary and their bodies are scary and world is very scary. They are opening up, voicing their insecurities and flaws.

Mom and Dad, I love you
do I show it enough?
I just miss how it felt standing next to you,
wearing matching dresses before the world was big

What makes this sharing of worries and secrets so cathartic and uplifting is that Tividad and Tucker are doing it together. Whatever her/his circumstances, the listener can’t help but feel part of something, recognised and included, not alone. When they ask “Do you feel restless when you realise you’re alive?” on ‘Chinatown’, you feel like shouting affirmatives, so when the song continues “I’m still looking sureness in the way I say my name / I am nervous for tomorrow and today,” you know you are on the same wavelength. As they sing on ‘Pretty’:

“I could only stare at my feet
when you said you felt
close to me.
Transfixed on lullabies,
I’m suspended when I find myself needing you
talk to me, tell me any story,
see me.
You don’t have to be alone”

It seems crazy that we have to write about a young band ‘returning’ to simplicity, especially as Tividad and Tucker are still teenagers. But in reality this is not regression but progression. The band have realised that the modern world wants (and forces) young people to grow up unnaturally fast, and while the first self-titled EP was thrashing against this, Before The World Was Big manages to offer a more sustainable and productive antidote. In a weird way, Girlpool have grown up – becoming confident enough to share their dreams and vulnerabilities and in turn galvanise a lonely generation too afraid of ridicule to live the lives they desire.

Before The World Was Big is out now on Wichita Recordings.

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