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Thursday, May 24, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS
MOM + POP MUSIC
Charly Bliss tour
ends with gusto
Courtney Barnett asks
for sincerity in ‘Tell Me’
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
Courtney Barnett’s second
album begins: “Y’know what
they say / No one’s born to hate
/ We learn it somewhere along
the way.” Paraphrased from
Nelson Mandela, that line from
the opener “Hopefulessness”
sets the tone for the rest of Tell
Me How You Really Feel, a tri-
umphant return after her debut
LP, Sometimes I Sit and Think,
And Sometimes I Just Sit and a
2017 collaboration with singer-
songwriter Kurt Vile.
Tell Me still carries Barnett’s
signature
rambling,
deadpan
delivery, but with a darker fla-
vor than her previous releases.
Through thirty-seven minutes
Barnett holds court with her
friends, lovers and enemies
with strength and piercing wit,
touching on issues like femi-
nism and isolation with a noisy
rock edge. At its base, the Aussie
songwriter’s sophomore effort
is a record about truth in all its
forms, be it hard to swallow or
written on the wall.
Beyond these subtle changes
from her past work, it’s all but
obvious that Tell Me is a cathar-
tic release for Barnett. Those
already fans of the artist are
probably more familiar with a
laid-back,
sardonic
approach
present in earlier songs like
“Avant Gardener,” in which she
narrates her own asthma attack,
and “History Eraser,” about the
confusing beginnings of love.
This record is notably more
pissed-off than Barnett’s first,
both attached and apathetic to
her experiences and relation-
ships as a woman in the world.
She navigates feedback-laced
webs of sound to push through
a
message
of
individualism
and transparency, most notice-
able on anthems “I’m Not Your
Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch,”
taking
on
the
virgin-whore
complex one guitar stroke at a
time. Nonetheless, the song-
writer manages to maintain her
classic dark humor throughout
the album, even making a song
titled “Crippling Self Doubt and
a General Lack of Self Control”
witty with lines like “And inde-
cision rots / like a bag of last
week’s meat.” Barnett might not
be funny on this record, but she
sure is honest. And what is more
hilarious than the realities of
life?
The artist focuses in on this
honesty throughout the album’s
first single “Nameless, Face-
less,” the title a nod to Nirvana’s
“Endless, Nameless” and an
angered response to the unjust
realities of being a woman.
She references iconic feminist
author Margaret Atwood in the
chorus with the sharp-tongued
line “Men are afraid that women
will laugh at them / Women are
afraid that men will kill them”
with a sharp tongue. The song is
big, headstrong and truly rocks
hard — it’s a women’s anthem
without any frills, and certainly
no beating around the bush.
Though much of Tell Me How
You Really Feel is hard-edged,
songs like the album’s crown
jewel
“City
Looks
Pretty,”
“Charity” and others are almost
happy-sounding. They attack
tough issues of isolation, impos-
ter syndrome and unhappiness,
but Barnett’s signature story-
telling and musical prowess
manages to flip them into dance-
able rock bangers. It forces an
audience to recognize the songs’
lyrics as they enjoy the music,
which is valuable in itself; Bar-
nett isn’t hiding anything from
her listeners, proving that joy
and anger can coexist, and even
create some really fantastic
music. At the end of the day, all
the singer wants to do is “Walk
through the park in the dark.”
In this record, Barnett poses
a question we should all think
about: Why can’t she?
CLARA SCOTT
Daily Arts Writer
On May 18, Charly Bliss brought
their brand of snarky, sugar-rush
indie rock to Ferndale’s The Loving
Touch. In the beginning, the crowd
was stirring a bit, due to opener Skat-
ing Polly having a medical emergen-
cy and unable to perform, but once
Eva Hendricks and company hit the
stage, they had everyone’s attention.
What makes Charly Bliss so mag-
netic is, hands down, their front-
woman. Hendricks commands the
stage with a bewitching, off-kilter
poise. She’s conscious of it, too. She
keeps her bleached hair in a long
bang across her forehead, a la 2007
MySpace Emo, that started to stick
with sweat to her forehead as the
show progressed. More than her
appearance, however, is her abil-
ity as a performer. Hendricks has
the high, honeyed voice of a toddler
that is praising a puppy. The contrast
between her voice’s qualities and lyr-
ics like “I can’t cum and I can’t lie / I
can’t stop making myself cry” is one
of the essential strengths of Charly
Bliss.
That isn’t to say, however, that she
overshadows her bandmates. Bass-
ist Dan Shure and drummer Sam
Hendricks provide backing vocals
on most songs, and guitarist Spencer
Fox absolutely shreds on tracks like
“Love Me” and “Black Hole.” There’s
an understanding that, yes, Eva is
the most charismatic, but Fox brings
the technical prowess and Shure and
Sam keep the group on track.
Their set opened with smaller
hits, like “Westermarck,” “Ruby”
and “Glitter,” from their debut album
Guppy, and it was a pleasure to watch
Charly Bliss wind themselves up for
the songs everyone was waiting for:
“Black Hole” and “Percolator.” As
mentioned, Hendricks is an intense
performer, and to watch her sneer as
she sings “I am pregnant with mean-
ing / Could it be more appealing?”
(spoiler: it couldn’t) or her eyes widen
as she pleads “I’m a mess, I mean in
the best case / Does he love me most?
Maybe I don’t come close,” (again,
spoiler: he doesn’t) is captivating.
As Charly Bliss led up to their
most anthemic songs, they played
some new material. Their trademark
sonic elements were there, but the
songwriting was a little different.
Instead of collections of images or
witty phrases, Hendricks rooted her
romantic hang-ups in real moments,
and dove into sincere expressions of
frustration and sadness. It was pow-
erful, and makes me excited for Char-
ly Bliss’s future releases.
They ended the show with an
encore of one of my personal favor-
ites, “Love Me.” It’s a quintessential
soured love song, and coincidentally,
the first song off their first release,
Soft Serve EP. Hendricks sings of a
lover who frankly sucks, but she can-
not help but blame her own short-
comings for the distance between
them. The entire song is a capitu-
lation of how intimacy reveals the
unpleasant elements of your partner
and — guess what — some unpleas-
ant elements of you, too. And by now,
Hendricks expects it: “Up above me,
say you love me / Just a little less / I
know what happens next.” “Love
Me,” and numerous other songs in
Bliss’s catalog, are some of the most
eloquent expressions of heartbreak
in music right now. It’ll be exciting to
see where they go next.
JACK BRANDON
Summer Managing Arts Editor
Tell Me How
You Really Feel
Mom + Pop Music
Courtney Barnett
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
MUSIC REVIEW