GIRL RAY - PRESTIGE
Prestige is a love letter to retro-disco and funk but innovates the genres in subtle ways, with injections of indie vocals and hints of modern musical technicality which take the whole album far from being just a call back to golden ages of previous genres.
Thanks to this feeling, Prestige is like returning to a city you once lived in after years away; the frame is familiar, comforting, and leaves you confident enough to relax into the psychedelic new features and enjoy everything new which this contemporary space has to offer.
‘Everybody’s Saying That’ encapsulates this energy perfectly. The classic slap basslines, funk reminiscent guitar chanking, a vocal melody which feels oh-so-familiar but is delivered with a modern-indie intonation and picks up pace to match the rest of the song in the choruses.
Opening with some jolly percussion, ‘Hold Tight’ joins the rich bo-diddley beat musical tradition alongside such classics as Wham’s ‘Freedom’; George Michael’s ‘Faith’ and Bow Wow Wow’s ‘I Want Candy’.
‘Hold Tight’ is a classic sweet love song, sharing the joys of finding love after dark times, as singer Poppy Hankin shares “I need you to hold tight / They can’t tell me / How you put the stars back in the sky / it’s your sweet words keeping me alive.”
But even in this classic love song theme Girl Ray insert the modern touches which set the set song to this exact time with lyrics such as “Talking shit in the grass would be just fine, baby.”
‘Love Is Enough’ layers luxurious harmonies onto a tapestry of sound which builds with an absolute confidence in their listener. Rather than launch the ingredients of a great track at the audience they allow their fans to bathe in the building sonic landscape. Beginning with stripped back vocals, backed by the band in their essential three piece sound, they let familiarity grow before gradually introducing layers of guitar, strings, more percussion and layers of subtle variations of what was earlier introduced until by the end of the track a wall of sound has developed - without at any time overwhelming their listeners.
The album ends on the epic journey of ‘Give Me your Love’ - an almost 8 minute psychedelic odyssey making use of every tool which has been established on the record so far, and more.
‘Give Me Your Love’ makes the most use of synthesisers out of all of the tracks on the album, exploring the sonic landscape with the same curiosity and love for the impact it can have on a song as predecessors of the psychedelic and funk genres once did before them. The song, despite its length, at no point overstays its welcome, and embraces the marathon which 8 minutes represents in a radio-centric 3-minute modern world of music.
Prestige takes the features which Girl Ray were exploring in years past with albums such as Girl, and tracks such as ‘Show Me More’, and develops them into a sound which while reminiscent of past experiences is completely their own and contributes to the legacy of funk, disco and psychedelia in their own profound way.
Nicholas Roberts
★★★★★