Androgynous Mary

Like most bands, Girl Friday has never been crazy about genre labels, and if you asked them whether they were pop or punk or indie, they’d very likely just say yes. By sliding continually between categories, though, this band creates a very absorbing tension between what they are right now and what they might become in a measure or two. You have to pay attention. You can’t take these songs for granted.

Girl Friday have delivered an exceptionally promising debut with Androgynous Mary. The band’s marriage of indie rock and post punk is perhaps not the most novel, but they deploy it with morbid imagery and personal malcontent that make clear their vision and ethos.

‘Androgynous Mary’ is an excellent, excellent debut and examines themes of hope paralleled with despair. They have struck the balance perfectly.

Girl Friday are quite clearly on their own path, and all the better for it.

Androgynous Mary is as morbid of a record as you’d expect from a bunch of L.A. punks. They’re disturbed, but entertained; they’re young, but disillusioned. If Androgynous Mary were a place, it would probably be a strange corner in the dark web controlled by Zoomers with good intentions and confused brains.

They play to a more jangle-pop register on the bouncy Public Bodies before bringing back the fuzzy guitars and haunting tones on What We Do It For. The only throughline here is that the songs themselves are interesting indie-rock.