Girls: "Vomit"

It’s hard to believe, considering their prolific output, that Girls is still such a young band—having released their astonishing debut Album just over two years ago. Since then, they’ve kept the momentum going with last year’s Broken Dreams Club EP and a steady stream of one-off songs and B-sides from frontman Christopher Owens. Owens is riding a wave of creativity, and he’s not done yet—the band’s second full-length, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, is due in September. The album’s first single, “Vomit,” finds Girls maintaining their standard sound, but letting their freak flag fly perhaps higher than it ever has. “Vomit” is replete with abandon, a three-part opus that, consistent with its title, feels like a purging, both of emotion and of some of the over-the-top inclinations characteristic of a young, confident band.

“Vomit” seems to me heavily influenced by The Bends (1995) era Radiohead, with a “Street Spirit”-style lead in grinding into a “Just”-like guitar breakdown. Come to think of it, Christopher Owens has a lot in common with the young, pre-OK Computer (1997) Thom Yorke, who also wrote songs about being a lonely weirdo and occasionally pretended to be a little bit tough. Owens, too innocent to sound like a full-blown stalker, channels that alienated obsessive with “Vomit”’s repeated opening lines, “Nights I spend alone / You’ve got me runnin’ round, searchin’ for you baby.”

“Vomit” unveils itself slowly, relieving tension and then building it back up again. A lot of ground is covered in a little over six minutes: sparse and eerie transitions to loud and menacing, which eventually opens up into bright, soaring balladry, with Owens begging “Come into my heart” over touches of organ. Ridiculously, the band employs some torch-y, overly excited backup singers to perform vocal runs over the song’s crescendo, and like most things Girls, it’s funny, strange, and moving at the same time. “Vomit” is giddy that way—Owens and JR White seem to throw in everything but the kitchen sink here, but the strong songwriting overcomes the madness, and turns it into something completely winning.