Pretty Girls Make Graves

[5/5] When Nathan Thelen left Pretty Girls Make Graves in 2004, it left Jay Clark as the Girls’ lone guitarist. Fortunately, new multi-instrumentalist Leona Marrs (Hint Hint) proves a savvy addition, lending a natural variation and dexterity to PGMG that’s appropriate since, musically, Élan Vital is easily the band’s most adventurous disc to date. Consider “Selling The Wind,” an accordion-driven toe-tapper that expands into a vaguely seductive, totally skittish sea chantey, or “Domino,” a song that begins like the kind of bouncy piano ditty you’d normally expect to hear pouring out of Jon Brion’s office. Moments later, frontwoman Andrea Zollo demands, half-rhetorically, “How do you like me now?” perhaps from those who thought the band would be content trying to rewrite The New Romance. PGMG scrapped an entire album when Marrs joined, electing to begin anew with her, but their core has endured. The rhythm section remains one of the most nimble in all of rock, and Clark’s angular axe work stills spirals around Zollo’s every melody, save for the two songs where guitars go AWOL altogether. They’re the same band, only different. And the progression sounds right, too. So, to those still wondering when PGMG will deliver their masterstroke, there’s really just one thing left to say: How soon is now?
(MATADOR) Tristan Staddon



ROCKS LIKE: The Fiery Furnaces’ Blueberry Boat • Sonic Youth’s Goo • Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever To Tell