Other Girls

Perfect Cities (Audio Eagle)

By Rebecca Shore
Published: June 9th, 2009 | 11:40am

For a band whose eldest members got their start playing parties at whichever flophouse was putting them up for the night, Other Girls’ well-honed sound comes as something of a surprise, though it shouldn’t. Jonah Oryszak, Jay Tousley, and Dave Wincek spent years toying with different genres from early '90s indie to that late '90s emo phase we’re all trying to forget, until they finally arrived at their best fitting sound: one that takes cues from current acts like Modest Mouse and Band Of Horses, but also the Replacements and the Smiths.

Now, after adding Corey Lanigan, the Cleveland-based foursome formerly known as the Black Girls is kickin’ it in real houses — some with real families and blue-collar gigs — and have released their debut, Perfect Cities, a mix of indie pop cuts which oscillate between driving and dreamy guitars. As Oryszak puts it, Other Girls “was sort of our last chance not to grow up,” and they wear the badge of youth well — though it probably doesn’t hurt that Audio Eagle Records is the pet project of the Black Keys' drummer Patrick Carney, lending them definite rocknroll cred from the get-go.

In "The Moth," a filmy echo stretches across the driving riffs, steady drums, and the vocals that are part James Mercer (The Shins) and part nasally punk aesthetic — blurring all the sounds into one amorphous noise. The result seems evolved from the dreamy riffs of shoegaze and lyrics insist, "I don’t wanna live in my parent’s house." The bouncy “Hey Fella! You Fell” and "Sleep a Year" closely evokes that Shins' aesthetic once more, with the latter owning a rhythm section torn from the pages of the Smiths' songbook (think “This Charming Man”). "Hey Fella” in particular is dedicated to the daily grind, as it compares to the long gone (and often yearned for) days of carefree couch surfing. The final cut, "Last Day," is a six-minute long, piano-driven composition that adds a satisfying closure to a wholly satisfying album.

While Perfect Cities might no longer get a wasted crowd of punks going at a Cleveland basement party, the grown-up sound still retains an edge and makes a solid case that growing up doesn’t necessary have to mean growing old.

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