Even in their rebirth, Vivian Girls have death on the brain. “I live in New York City/And all my friends are dead,” Cassie Ramone sings flatly on “I’m Far Away,” a creeping, paranoid track off of Memory, Vivian Girls’ first album in eight years. That sentiment also serves as a general consensus about the state of indie rock in the half-decade since the band’s official breakup: Vivian Girls, along with the North Brooklyn DIY scene they came to represent, have died.
But even after their demise, it was hard not to hear Vivian Girls everywhere. Their spirit existed, in their absence, in the school-choir harmonies of Girlpool and Ovlov, the electric fuzz that burns after a Deli Girls track or a Priests riff, the hesitant confidence of Frankie Cosmos’ lyrics. That’s not to suggest the band only touched the lives of female and nonbinary musicians—look no further than Wavves, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, or the entire Orchid Tapes catalog for their stoned ennui. But perhaps these groups could thrive, both critically and in the harsh spotlight of the internet, because Vivian Girls forged a brave new world of punk rock that wasn’t afraid of a beautiful vocal harmony, one that could exist in between the uncompromising politics of riot grrrl and the soft hues of twee-pop.
Ramone, bassist Katy Goodman, and drummer Ali Koehler could have cleaned up their sound and shaken off their harsher edges. Instead, from the first chord of opener “Most of All,” the band jumps back into fried guitar, loose percussion, and fast and easy repetition, as if they’d simply woken up from an eight-year nap in the middle of a set. If anything, the group leans into their garage rock roots a bit more, letting songs spiral out, as on “I’m Far Away”’s scorched guitar solo or the prolonged, slowcore-indebted outro to “Something to Do.”
The band stretches their blend of punk and ethereal pop the farthest on the uncharacteristically slow-building “Lonely Girl,” where a muted kick drum hits like a resting heartbeat as layers build around it. And then, after two minutes of long vowels and drawn-out sentences, the song picks up steam, as if the band chugs a Red Bull each time Cassie repeats the titular phrase. By the end, they sound like a train running out of track: “No you can’t come here,” Ramone sings, louder and gnarlier, before putting her foot down—“No! Cuz I’m a lonely girl.” It sounds like a breakdown, a tantrum, a moment of clarity—and then, as if nothing had happened, it fades into washed vocal melodies, and then into silence.
There are missteps, a risk on most punk albums that run north of 10 songs. The seesaw vocals that open “Mistake” are a bit too short of breath, like a child fervently reciting a playground rhyme. The longest song on the record, “All Your Promises,” pushes the band’s capacity for extended psych-rock jams to its limit with a four-minute, free-wheeling outro. But those indulgences are forgivable, even understandable, on an album that feels like a triumphant return. And seen through the frame of the critics they’ve outlived, who often interpreted their use of distortion pedals as amateur musicianship, the extra time spent on riffs seems like an abrasive “fuck you.”
On their last pre-breakup album, 2011’s Share the Joy, Vivian Girls’ lyrics seemed mired in the heightened politics of blog-rock, with long spoken-word intros mocking their “girl group” status. On Memory, there’s a clarity and intensity to Ramone’s songwriting that leaves little room for gimmicks, employing the earnestness that made the Brooklyn DIY scene such a refreshing break from the coy art rock of early 2000s Manhattan. Despondency is a running theme, but more specifically, the album homes in on the quiet despair that comes with the passage of time—an ex-lover remarking that Ramone looks different, old wrongs that can’t be righted, driving drunk because God gets us all in the end. The anxiety that plagues Ramone runs deep—she’s itching to crawl out of her skin, screaming that nobody loves her; coming from a musician who admittedly agonized over harsh criticism in the past, it’s almost daring to admit to the level of self-hatred she does here. But wrapped in Vivian Girls’ dusty, rose-colored melodies, the anxiety goes down easy.
Up until the release of Memory, the band’s arc followed that of their namesake: The Story of the Vivian Girls, the magnum opus of reclusive outsider artist Henry Darger. His stories and illustrations were completed at night; no one knew of his prolific output until they were discovered by his landlord shortly before his death. And while the Vivian Girls of certainly received recognition during their active years, it was only after their breakup that fans started to see their work as something greater, more representative of big questions about the state of rock music. After everything they’ve been through, Vivian Girls prefer to live on the outside.
Buy: Rough Trade
