Philly Indie Punk Outfit Church Girls Announce Their New LP "The Haunt" and Share New Single "Could've Been"
Church Girls have officially announced their new LP The Haunt, produced by Scott Solter (St. Vincent, Spoon, The Mountain Goats), and have shared the lead single "Could've Been". The Haunt will be out February 7 on Chatterbot Records.
Church Girls—Philly’s emerging indie punk outfit—delivers urgent catharsis on The Haunt, providing “a glimmer of hope amidst nihilism,” says bandleader Mariel Beaumont. The record tackles themes of addiction and despondency in a poetic will to move forward towards healing and developing healthier habits. The group has been busy since their last, critically acclaimed EP, Cycles. They’ve been featured at Paste Magazine & Daytrotter, Bandcamp (New & Notable), Punknews, PopDust, PopMatters, The Deli Philadelphia & more, touring extensively across the U.S., Canada & the U.K. The band is gearing up for another European tour, in support of their forthcoming, sophomore LP, The Haunt (out February 7), produced by Scott Solter (Spoon, St. Vincent, The Mountain Goats).
The post-punk aggression of The Haunt combined with Beaumont’s undying ploy to “pour gasoline and burn everything in our wake (in order to rise from the ashes)” foster controlled anger in the name of sapping the noxious and unwelcome return of addiction. The title track’s bruising rhythms and arresting guitar melodies catapult Beaumont’s vocals to the edge of the album’s wry, indelible refrain: “I’m so sick of shoving dirt in a bottomless pit.” Replete with gang vocals, the band relishes their ability to let the dirt shower over musty skeletons with dizzying guitars, subtle organ stabs and sticky bass lines. Consisting of Mariel Beaumont, her writing partner, Joseph Wright (guitar), Vince Vullo (bass) and Julien Varnier (drums), Church Girls conflate and implement fervor, breezing past the listener in all of one minute and 39 religious seconds. Church Girls make it wholly transparent, that they’re able to defeat mundanity and combat addiction by using their musical agility as a weapon, to snuff out meaninglessness, no quarter.
“These songs are personal, but also occasionally from the perspective of close friends or family members. Similar to prior themes, we’re trying to understand those close to us, who might be going through a rough time, whether it’s with addiction or divorce; it’s also a daily balance of—okay, how much am I supposed to be helping myself and how much am I supposed to be helping others?” Beaumont asks.
Parquet Courts, Can, Daughters, IDLES, Protomartyr, PUP, Interpol and Dinosaur Jr. are all staples in Church Girls’ repertoire of rock and post-punk influences. The Haunt contains some of these edgier, fuzzier, bristly moments that espouse physicality and give way to a more captivating live performance. “We’ve been going after something more tribal, a transcendent quality where you can feel it in your chest. That’s how I feel like we connect with our audience the best,” says Beaumont. “We play a little harder and faster now. I scream a little bit more. We’ve also been enjoying the regularity of mosh pits at our shows.”
Beaumont’s breathy and cracking howls pair nicely with Wright’s expertly crafted, wiry and bespeckled guitar rhythms on “Could’ve Been,” a song that unfurls as the narrator implodes at the thought of a loved one, throwing their life away, crumbling with addiction and damaging close-knit relationships. “Nothing,” the opener, shrink-wraps Beaumont’s regressed feeling of apathy. When the juggling act becomes too much, sinking down and hitting the floor might hurt, but it’s “better than nothing, right?” The gang vocals emerge again, and the lyric becomes more of a grounded declaration, and perhaps a rhetorical question that serves as a reminder. Meanwhile, on “Better,” the Van Winkle effect hits, as Beaumont denotes how her peers have all but grown up, some with kids, having since moved away from Philly. “Am I walking in circles, or am I making headway?” The thought vexes Beaumont.
“I’ve been running this band for 5 years, and a lot of my friends have grown up and moved away from Philly. Sometimes I’m in Ohio, in the middle of nowhere, wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life or if I’m heading down the right path. I’m traveling across the country, which is great, but I’m wondering: “What do my friends think about this? Am I doing the right thing?” “Unwound” feels anthemic in the same manner that Broken Social Scene explode with a sense of urgency on glorious numbers like “Almost Crimes” or “Cause = Time.”
Above all, Church Girls beseech the average defeatist to come to their senses, processing their own first-hand experiences with discord to help others tackle addiction, trauma or taxing relationships. So too goes the lyric in “Twin Hell Fire,” taking aim at volatility: “You’re burning in a little hell of your own making/Just wondering when old threats of divorce will come again/Maybe if you’d paid some mind to all the warning signs/You’d forgive yourself for everything.”
Similar, thematically, to the rest of the album, “Dissipate” glorifies moments of hope against drudgery, dread and anxiety. “I write a list of memories when I sit down to work on lyrics for the next project. I was coming up with all these positive moments—times where life can be really meaningful and beautiful—but also fleeting, and maybe that’s OK,” Beaumont ruminates. “That’s what this song’s about—laying awake over things that are painful—but, I have these stretches of bliss that sort of make it all worthwhile,” she says. “It goes away, but it might come back, ya know?”