Kitty Empire 

Goat Girl: On All Fours review – more tuneful, less edgy

This magnificently sullen band smooth things out on their eclectic second album
  
  

Goat Girl.
Goat Girl. Photograph: Holly Whitaker

Goat Girl’s eponymous 2018 debut album could be both visceral – with singing guitarist Lottie Pendlebury memorably threatening to hit a perv on a train – and more open-ended, two aspects they shared with the post-punk bands of the late 70s. This searching, south London four-piece have expanded the latter tendency on album two, becoming more experimental, and somehow more tuneful, into the bargain.

The low-slung scuzz rock that marked Goat Girl as part of the same unkempt lineage as Shame and Fat White Family isn’t totally gone – witness the threatening guitars on album standout The Crack – but it’s had updates installed. The increased attention to atmospheres mean that songs such as PTS Tea channel more than a little Stereolab; throughout, the burble of analogue keyboards tilts at Broadcast. Even more unexpected is how Sad Cowboy throws in full-on house vibes at its close.

All this is a victory for open-eared eclecticism and Goat Girl’s ability to privilege musicianship over rote murk. But some of this magnificently sullen band’s edges have been filed down; their strides into left field could have been more decisive.

Watch the video for The Crack by Goat Girl
 

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