Texan tough-girl band, Girls in a Coma, a group that blends indie, rock and punk, released their newest album “Trio B.C.” late last year. According to the band’s website, the album was an entirely new experience for the ladies. They produced the album, under producer Greg Collins, who worked with acts such as U2 and Gwen Stefani, in just about 18 months, a far stretch from previous albums that included material from as early as seven years prior. The experience was exciting for the girls.
Girls in a Coma is made up of writer, guitarist and vocalist Nina Diaz, joined by Jenn Alva on bass guitar and drummer Phanie Diaz, Nina’s elder sister. Alva and Phanie Diaz met early in middle school, according to their website.
The band’s influences in their music are obvious. Besides Morrisey, Nirvana and Joan Jett were also named as large influences on the style. They had the opportunity to play for Jett in 2006. They have also opened for Frank Black, the Pogues, Social Distortion and Tegan and Sara.
It’s not unique or creative by any stretch, but it’s not bad. The first track, simply titled “BB,” starts the album on an interesting enough note with a catchy mariachi-esque riff, but it quickly devolves into a generic indie track that seems to mesh the music of “Murder By Death” and the vocal style of Rilo Kiley. “Static Mind,” the second track, offered no more originality, but it was at the very least different from the first track, more punk than indie. Moreover, “In the Day” is a much more uptempo, upbeat than the previous songs. In that way, Girls in a Coma show they are at least capable of different types of songs varying from fierce and spunky to calm and cool, but even so, the music in each of the songs simply comes off as uninspired and predictable.
They have the capacity to illicit strong mental visuals in a listener’s head, such as “make sure we’re falling back down to the eyes are blue” and “nothing’s the same, Alice in her land” in the song “Baby Boy.” They also have the potential to make a listener laugh out loud, vulgarity and all. Such was the case with the line “multiply like rabbits with hard drinks” in “Static Mind.” Despite their overt attitude, they’re also capable of genuine human warmth, illustrated in “El Monte,” a song that describes real, down-to-earth love.
It should be stressed that despite the flaws of this album, it is worth a listen. If you like Joan Jett, Tegan and Sara or Rilo Kiley, you’ll enjoy these girls. “Trio B.C.” can be found at http://www.girlinacoma.com/ and on iTunes.
Robin MacPherson Staff Writer rmacpher@uncc.edu
Right out of the hot, southern ambers of Fort Worth, Texas, a fairly new sound by the name of Green River Ordinance is bound to catch fire with their debut release with Virgin Records, Out of My Hands. Five young personalities come together in a perfect harmony in the creation of this album, consisting of a good, versatile selection of songs. In doing so they maintain a particularly interesting style of acoustically powered pop-rock, that pertains to a mixture of the likes of The Fray, Third Blind Eye, Matchbox 20, and Augustana. Previously having toured with an impressive resume of artists like Bon Jovi and Simple Plan, this clean, green image is more than worthy of leaving the bar venues that they perform at, and entering a higher vicinage on a level closer to that of their inspirations.
If a flowing collection of basic rock song structures is at ones desire, this group is unequivocally a great choice. Combining an attenuate mixture of acoustic and electric instrumentation, topped off with sophisticated vocal harmony of a pop-rock nature, this band will attend to many needs of a music lover who enjoys good sound. Something that is nice to hear is how dextrous the group is with their instrumentation, being able to utilize acoustic and electric guitar, the piano, drum bass and backing vocal harmonies. They unquestionably score straight A’s on the test of live performance, producing a sound equally as attractive as anything brewed in a studio, and the lyrics and soul of the music just connects with the listener.
Out Of My Hands contains a nice concoction of different feelings, subjects and tempo’s, utilizing the acoustic and electric sounds well. A great example of two songs adopting these contrasting tempo’s and sounds are: Endlessly, which tells the majestic story of one’s love for a girl who has left, not giving up, still waiting. Track eleven on the album, this song has much more of an acoustic feel to it, with a slower tempo. The piano and acoustic guitar work beautifully together similar to the elegant harmony of the voices. At track six, Different (Anything At All) expresses feelings of missing many good times now in the past. This song possesses a much faster tempo and the electrical resonance adds another dimension to the album. Both songs are well worth listening to.
Selling over 20,000 copies between their initial two independent releases, Beauty of Letting Go and Way Back Home, the newest addition of their discography should excel their reputation to an all time high, and that’s in your hands.
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