The Jealous Girlfriends aren’t exactly groundbreaking. But you’d be hard pressed to find them anything less than pleasing. With compositional range and superbly thoughtful production, their eponymous album reveals the one-time duo as a formidable five-piece force, the first band on Grey’s Anatomy to provide an incentive to watch Grey’s Anatomy.
The lodestar of their sound is vocalist/guitarist Holly Miranda, whose preferred vocal style is a soulful rasp with overtones of boozy insinuation. But she has an alternate mode of high-toned Cocteau Twin ethereality. Miranda shares vocal and guitar duties with Josh Abbott, and although his voice lacks the intoxicant effect of hers, the dual vocals through most songs thicken the mix, piling another layer onto echo-laden tracks already populated by synth, drums and careening guitars.
Yes, there are a variety of bands in this female-fronted/shoegazey/’60s-literate vein (Duke Spirit, Experimental Aircraft, Soundpool, etc.), but JG take them to town. Again, it’s a matter of range. If you like guitar-pedal expertise, 85 percent non-annoying synth, weird sunshiney singsong na-nas (“The Pink Wig to my Salierr”), done-me-wrong lounge numbers (“Organs on the Kitchen Floor”), Motown (“Roboxulla”), the occasional stab at near-epic OK Computer-ness (the closer “Carry Me”), and the slow shimmer waves of shoegaze (“Heiroglyphics,” “Machines”) shit, then JG has got something for you.
The pervasive lovelornliness (the defining vibe of the iPod generation?) can be a turnoff, but it’s a small price to pay for the scope of this album, which veers expertly through pop and indie touchstones with enough breadcrumbs left along the way for rock snobs and Grey’s Anatomy worshippers alike.
In her own words: Miranda Holly, singer/guitarist of Jealous Girlfriends, was on the phone with me within 24 hours of her return from Paris where she had been playing a solo opening slot on Scott Matthew’s tour. Even though she was slightly jetlagged, she was amiable and relaxed, convincing me that she’d be a perfect super-cool older sister.
Live response: Crowds have been great, although we haven’t done a headlining tour. But the tours we’ve been on have been amazing. Being out opening for Nada Surf, that crowd had such a heavy love vibe, that crowd was really accepting and sweet—and nice to us.
Why this album took two years: We didn’t have a label; we didn’t have a release. We recorded the record at Headgear, which is the studio that Alex [Lipson, our keyboardist] owns. We pretty much used the studio when it wasn’t being used, midnight to 5 a.m.; or one day, just recording bits and pieces. And we were playing and supporting that as a trio and as a quintet. But, umm, we just couldn’t find the right deal, we talked to so many different labels, and they wanted so much more than we were willing to give up.
On why not to give up creatively or economically: We had already made the record, so the typical record deal didn’t make sense. Why would we give up the rights to our masters when we had already paid for the recording process? It made sense in the long run for us rather than compromising what we wanted to get the record out there… I’m still really excited about the record, it’s not boring or old to us, but we do have eight new songs that we are playing.
Difference from first album: The first record originally started off as a solo record of mine which Alex was going to produce, so that record is all my songs and Alex producing and playing on them. As that record was winding down, we decided we wanted to play together more. So we turned it in to a band release. We played as a duo for a while, then Josh came along and we were a trio; he’s a drummer. The three of us actually recorded this record together and all started contributing songs.
Road advice: It’s important to take care of your body and eat as well as you can. Which is hard, because there is nothing between Chicago and Cleveland except shit. What I realized on the European tour was just to buy a soccer ball. I bought a soccer ball in Italy, you can play soccer or “FOOOT-ball” at rest stops. You can play “FOOOT-ball” anywhere.
The lodestar of their sound is vocalist/guitarist Holly Miranda, whose preferred vocal style is a soulful rasp with overtones of boozy insinuation. But she has an alternate mode of high-toned Cocteau Twin ethereality. Miranda shares vocal and guitar duties with Josh Abbott, and although his voice lacks the intoxicant effect of hers, the dual vocals through most songs thicken the mix, piling another layer onto echo-laden tracks already populated by synth, drums and careening guitars.
Yes, there are a variety of bands in this female-fronted/shoegazey/’60s-literate vein (Duke Spirit, Experimental Aircraft, Soundpool, etc.), but JG take them to town. Again, it’s a matter of range. If you like guitar-pedal expertise, 85 percent non-annoying synth, weird sunshiney singsong na-nas (“The Pink Wig to my Salierr”), done-me-wrong lounge numbers (“Organs on the Kitchen Floor”), Motown (“Roboxulla”), the occasional stab at near-epic OK Computer-ness (the closer “Carry Me”), and the slow shimmer waves of shoegaze (“Heiroglyphics,” “Machines”) shit, then JG has got something for you.
The pervasive lovelornliness (the defining vibe of the iPod generation?) can be a turnoff, but it’s a small price to pay for the scope of this album, which veers expertly through pop and indie touchstones with enough breadcrumbs left along the way for rock snobs and Grey’s Anatomy worshippers alike.
In her own words: Miranda Holly, singer/guitarist of Jealous Girlfriends, was on the phone with me within 24 hours of her return from Paris where she had been playing a solo opening slot on Scott Matthew’s tour. Even though she was slightly jetlagged, she was amiable and relaxed, convincing me that she’d be a perfect super-cool older sister.
Live response: Crowds have been great, although we haven’t done a headlining tour. But the tours we’ve been on have been amazing. Being out opening for Nada Surf, that crowd had such a heavy love vibe, that crowd was really accepting and sweet—and nice to us.
Why this album took two years: We didn’t have a label; we didn’t have a release. We recorded the record at Headgear, which is the studio that Alex [Lipson, our keyboardist] owns. We pretty much used the studio when it wasn’t being used, midnight to 5 a.m.; or one day, just recording bits and pieces. And we were playing and supporting that as a trio and as a quintet. But, umm, we just couldn’t find the right deal, we talked to so many different labels, and they wanted so much more than we were willing to give up.
On why not to give up creatively or economically: We had already made the record, so the typical record deal didn’t make sense. Why would we give up the rights to our masters when we had already paid for the recording process? It made sense in the long run for us rather than compromising what we wanted to get the record out there… I’m still really excited about the record, it’s not boring or old to us, but we do have eight new songs that we are playing.
Difference from first album: The first record originally started off as a solo record of mine which Alex was going to produce, so that record is all my songs and Alex producing and playing on them. As that record was winding down, we decided we wanted to play together more. So we turned it in to a band release. We played as a duo for a while, then Josh came along and we were a trio; he’s a drummer. The three of us actually recorded this record together and all started contributing songs.
Road advice: It’s important to take care of your body and eat as well as you can. Which is hard, because there is nothing between Chicago and Cleveland except shit. What I realized on the European tour was just to buy a soccer ball. I bought a soccer ball in Italy, you can play soccer or “FOOOT-ball” at rest stops. You can play “FOOOT-ball” anywhere.
