A GUEST POSTING from STRANGEWAYS
From Chicago – via Janis Joplin’s Port Arthur, Texas – comes Brigitte Calls Me Baby. Under the belt are two LPs: The Future is Our Way Out (ATO, 2024) and the so-new-it’s-not-even-released-as-I-type-this Irreversible (ATO, 2026).
Influences? Comparisons to the Smiths are nothing new – but also no less appropriate in part – and my sister reckoned a bit of Associates and a general feel of new wave. There’s maybe something of the Killers sometimes, and it would be remiss also not to note a sound that occasionally kind of honours New Romanticism. For that, head to We Were Never Alive – a song, like all the recommendations below, from The Future is Our Way Out.
That’s a debut record that begins ominously as a broody and beautiful title track fades in. It brings with it though a festival-level sing-along chorus about knowing there’s a place to be happy, but – bummer – not knowing where that place is. Later on, the protagonist appears to be imagining his funeral – one filled with people and flowers. The yearning and angst are delicious and wraparound and, being supplied by a good-looking and willowy frontman in Wes Leavins, deliver a pleasingly familiar experience. Later on, classic rock ‘n’ roll licks are heard from the lead guitar of Jack Fluegel on Eddie My Love. You’ll find a bit of Elvis now and again too, most especially in LP closer and outlier Always Be Fine.
Lyrically, Brigitte often concern themselves with those reliable building blocks from which much great pop is constructed: love and death. For dying – the four-car garage death wish of I Wanna Die in the Suburbs is your first stop. And if love is more your thing, you’ll be well served by the joyous expression found in the poppy and melodic Palm of Your Hand, a perfect gig opener for the way it melts in, prior to swiftly going straight for it. On that note, live, the band is tight and professional in every department – arresting too, and well capable of delivering a night that connects emotionally and walks you back home even if no one else does.
To finish up, and although it’s hardly the edgiest thing to say about a pop group, they feel managed superbly – and ambitious in the best sense: hard-working, serious and in it for the win via high-production promo videos, US talk show spots and the grunt of regular headline touring in their home nation and across Europe.
I know no aspiring rock star lives to one day be chucking a well-composed new email from the hotel window and into the swimming pool, but these things – announcements, sharing a few words of thanks, offering a stripped-back version of a song – matter. And if you follow artists or bands that don’t make those efforts you’ll know why they matter all the more.
Added to these promotional components have been support slots with the likes of Morrissey, Fontaines DC, and the Vaccines, the latter of which – yay – brought Brigitte to Glasgow for the second time in ten months. I see people I quite like and am close to with less frequency. At these shows and others, the group is generous with its time, making a point of meeting fans – and perhaps fans-to-be – when the house lights go up. Again: it’s stuff done right, even if you subscribe to the view that the only thing you owe the public is a good performance.
Last August at Gorilla, a venue in Manchester, a serpent of a meet-and-merch queue took 45 minutes to complete, and by its tail-end every single thing with the Brigitte name upon it had sold out. So what, you might say, but it’s recounted only to express the feeling that something exciting could be in the post for this band. I hope so, because it would be well deserved.
Some Baby boomers from the debut:
If you’re in a hurry, I’d try this one first – elegant and anthemic.
Oh, if life could only be so kind I wouldn’t mind being alive…
A choppy and frantic post-punk blast of relationship drama.
It’s not the way you smile that talks me off the ledge for a while…
A death wish expressed via soaring chorus.
Turn out the lights, then send in the entourage…
Delightful pop song in the way the likes of In Between Days and Ask are unashamedly upbeat.
You know that the distance isn’t far to get to where you already are…
One for old romantics everywhere.
However real it seemed, it was just a dream…
Beyond that first record, a couple of singles from new album Irreversible – Slumber Party and I Danced With Another Love in My Dream – are found at all your favourite online purveyors.
Lineup:
Wes Leavins – vocals
Jack Fluegel – guitar
Devin Wessels – bass guitar
Jeremy Benshish – drums
Thanks as ever to Jim for the space, and to you for reading.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 