Girl Band – Lawman (2014)
When I first heard this I was immediately taken with the song’s beat and attitude. After repeated listening, I found the vocal melody a little irritating but at the same time very catchy. I realised this wasn’t the kind of track you drink green tea to on a Sunday morning. It made me curious as to what the singer was actually saying – I don’t think you can call it singing, but that’s rock ‘n’ roll hey? Dylan, Lou Read, I could go into a long-winded debate about whether or not they can sing but what I will say is here’s a band that says to me: “get your fat ass on the dance floor G!”, and I would be the first one on it.
It’s driving beat is contagious and those sounds hark back to a bygone era, sounds not easily identifiable to myself. I will find out what that whirling, electronic sound is. It sounds fresh to me, although this may be because I’m not a fan of what others may describe as Krautrock. After having located the lyrics from a few on-line sources, some were more accurate than others, I was satisfied that they represented what I was hearing on the record (if you can still use that retro word!). Songs can be like onions – there are many layers but I struggled to get much meaning from the song apart from that line, “I saw another woman with my eyes closed”. I thought to myself, wait a minute. This sounds a little risqué. You might be thinking along the same lines; but, sure enough the singer/lyricist may have employed his/her right to be ambiguous and say what he wants and get away with murder, or potentially in this case, an act of devious fantasy – who knows. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Maybe this song is not so much of an onion but an iceberg in that there is more to the song than first meets the ear. It certainly wallows in it’s own ambiguity.
In the lyric he sings that he’s not a racist, so maybe he is questioning whatever it is he is really thinking about. Whereas Paul McCartney might have got into trouble about the arguably racist theme of ‘Get Back’ and some might have launched an attack on Lorde’s new-ish single ‘Royal’. ‘Lawman’ won’t be tried along these lines because we don’t know what on earth he’s talking about. Lyrics in the form of poetry might be a little out of place on such a record as this but this is rock ‘n’ roll as I mentioned already. I do, however, look for a bit of meaning in a record – something I can understand but I’m afraid this leads me a little cold. It’s a good job I’m dancing and I’m too pissed to care. Then it occurred to me, they are called Girl Band but I thought the singer a bit too masculine in the vocal department; so I set up on to find out a little more about this entourage.
I hit a brick wall for a time in that I was confusing them with another band called Girl Band whose members have starred in episodes of Home and Away! Having seen a photo of one of the girls, I found it hard to believe that this blonde bombshell was capable of making this heavy, helter skelter-type record; and then I find out who they really are. They are a four-piece band – all male – and they come from Ireland, not Australia (Dublin to be precise). They consist of: Dara Kiely (vocals, guitar), Alan Duggan (guitar), Daniel Fox (bass), and Adam Faulkner (drums).
Guys, I look forward to your next single.
