Share The Joy

Vivian Girls, “Share The Joy” (Polyvinyl, 2011)
The last three years have brought more good-to-great underground rock and roll than any period since the early ‘90s, or even the late ‘80s, and along with the Fresh and Onlys, Vivian Girls occupy the very apex of this wave. Like the Fresh and Onlys, too, this is the follow-up to a previous album that pushed the band’s sound to a frenzied raw-nerve edge, and in apparent reaction is more circumspect and understated, but equally intense in its own way. Vivian Girls’ tremulous, melodic-yet-dissonant guitar-pop has never been more hauntingly beautiful than the best stuff here, or cut deeper.
Try A/1, B/5
5/1/11