Album Review: Post War Glamour Girls – ‘Feeling Strange’

Aside from sporting one of those spectacular band names that precariously walk the lines between daft mouthful and inspired assortment, Post War Glamour Girls (nothing if not evocative, which is what you’d expect from the coinage of John Cooper Clarke), also possess a sound as strong as the imagery their moniker conjures. It’s for this reason that the Leeds-based four-piece fast became firm favourites of ours at Cultured Vultures HQ. We positively picked their bones bare when ‘Southpaw Stance’ first surfaced, and thus couldn’t wait to get our beaks into ‘Felonious Punk’ when it followed.

Those two tracks acted as the first introductions to this, their sophomore effort, Feeling Strange; itself initially teased out through a staggered introduction by way of two five-track EPs/parts, both available for stream or pay-what-you-want download, that now combine to make its ten-track, long-playing whole. ‘Felonious Punk’ was a glamorous stomp of Nick Cave fronting Queens of the Stone Age manic funk swagger, and ‘Southpaw Stance’ was a psychedelic goth extravaganza that also touched upon the middle-ground between the colourful quirks of Arctic Monkeys on Favourite Worst Nightmare and the sinister mellow they found on Humbug’s less heavy tracks.

I mean, as tantalising first tastes go, you can’t really argue with that, and it’s no doubt why ‘Felonious Punk’ finds itself opening Feeling Strange with a thrust to the face. However, the key to Post War Glamour Girls’ success on their second, is variety and evolution. The band have managed to develop the experimental post-punk sound they started formulating on their first album, Pink Fur, honing it into something tighter, more cohesive, and, dare I say it, something more accessible. Simultaneously, though, they have branched out further and showcased the breadth of mood and style their comfortable playing around in. ‘Felonious Punk’ and ‘Southpaw Stance’ somehow become both curveballs and exemplary when taking the album in as a whole.

‘Wax Orphans’ immediately changes tact after Feeling Strange‘s strutting starter by opening out into Spanish guitar style, fingerpicking, brooding bass growls, and reverb heavy Americana-esque open chords. It also brings with it the first foray for Alice Scott’s delicately melodic vocal fire to contrast against James Smith’s brimstone snarl, which only adds to the sense of drama and emotion that the track pushes through with its number of juxtapositions. This is something that reoccurs on end-of-part-one, and possibly best song on the album, ‘Highest Hill’. Embracing the more tender approach, ‘Highest Hill’ is a gentle and genuinely quite stunning centrepiece for the album. It’s a song that doesn’t overstate itself either, instead keeping things simple, minimal, and letting the emotion of the track do all of the talking. It calls to mind a Bad Seeds ballad meets Editors at their moodiest and melancholic. The melodies throughout it are subtle but sublime.

It’s hard not to see Feeling Strange as a game of two halves, being as it was originally revealed as such, especially after the emotional climax of ‘Highest Hill’ acting as a fitting closing number. Initially, this fact seems only emphasised by ‘Count Your Blessings’ beginnings, what with its Pixies bass and guitar lines, but that soon passes as the track gets into full swing with Smith and Scott soon duetting again. The emotive atmosphere of the first half bleeds through and it becomes clear that this shift is the result of a varied whole not two separate entities forced together. ‘Psuedo Macho’ is an incidental interlude followed by one of the weaker tracks in ‘Shell of a Man’, mirroring its part one counterpart ‘Gentle Is Her Touch’ in hitting the middle of the road and not really going anywhere.

However, the one-two work of ‘Cannonball Villages’ and ‘Return to Highest Hill’ more than make up for this, and prove that Post War Glamour Girls really know to write closing numbers. ‘Cannonball Villages’ is an epic, comfortably and confidently filling its eight minute runtime with immersive rises and falls, feedback laden instrumental passages, delicacy and aggression. Perhaps gunning a little for Berlin-era Bowie by way of Editors again on this one. ‘Return to Highest Hill’ isn’t so much of a reprise as a coda for the album as a whole. Coming after the squall that ‘Cannonball Villages’ erupts into and bleeds out on, ‘Return…’ presents itself on a subdued and straight rhythm, pushing through the noise, before a pleasing melancholy akin to dream pop with hints of shoegaze pours over the track. Smith’s vocals are a more of a brief but amped up performance poem this time, with the nostalgic instrumentation soothing, hypnotising, and lulling us through to the end; slowly dropping out as the ambient sounds of the hill take over, then fade.