{"id":8315,"date":"2022-10-23T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipamusic.co.uk\/?p=8315"},"modified":"2022-12-23T16:45:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T16:45:33","slug":"girls-in-synthesis-go-down-an-even-darker-path-on-album-number-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipamusic.co.uk\/?p=8315","title":{"rendered":"Girls In Synthesis go down an even darker path on album number two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ALBUM REVIEW: Girls In Synthesis – The Rest Is Distraction <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

(Own It\/Cargo Records)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Girls In Synthesis are an experimental post-punk band from London who have become one of the scene’s most important acts in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formed in 2016, the three-piece created a stir with a series of self-released EPs before unleashing their debut album Now Here’s An Echo From Your Future<\/em> (reviewed here<\/a><\/strong>) in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, after giving us a taste of a new direction with the even denser, darker Konsumrausch<\/em> mini-album (reviewed here<\/a><\/strong>) in the summer, they’re back with album number two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what an album it is. Intense doesn’t even begin to sum up the swathes of astonishingly powerful noise-rock they have come up with on The Rest Is Distraction<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Linger (lead vocals and bass), James Cubit (vocals and guitar) and Nicole Pinto (drums) take elements of anarcho-punk, noise-rock and post-punk and throw it all in a blender.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Girls In Synthesis. Pic by Bea Dewhurst.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Recorded last year amid the uncertainty of continuous lockdowns as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic, this album is far darker in content than its predecessor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exploring internal and mental struggles rather than external current affairs, it focuses on the claustrophobia of emotional anguish which many felt during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album roars immediately into life with It’s All Beginning To Change<\/em>, with shimmering guitar, juddering bass lines and disjointed drum patterns rolling in like a tidal wave before exploding into a tsunami of noise.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"girls
The Rest Is Distraction is Girls In Synthesis’s second proper album.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It bristles with the sense of unease which has become the band’s trademark, and is followed by the even spikier Watch With Mother<\/em> which speaks of “memories so vivid I can taste my childhood\/the good, the bad. the indifferent.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same’s the case on the jagged Total Control<\/em>, where “the family’s even turned their back on you\/they can’t believe that you were one of them” and “the only thing you’ve managed to achieve is hate”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The frantic Swallowed Pill<\/em> and the industrial-sounding Screaming <\/em>are unanswered cries for help, while My Husband<\/em>, punctuated by discordant guitar, is set against a background of domestic abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n