It wasn’t so long ago that O. Girdler struck a chord with début number I Want You (Say So) and the itinerant Londoner now returns, turning in the ominously named Death Spin. Whereas its predecessor riffed on the accessible sensibilities of The Electric Soft Parade, Teenage Fanclub, et cetera Girdler switches to a darker (if no less scintillating) mood for this latest effort, as swirling guitars instantly collide with portentous toms. Shades of Dinosaur Jr. in their wild, unwound salad days come and go among reminiscences of “a Sunday afternoon, June’s heat stuck to you,” before another thoroughly striking chorus kicks in. So far, so conventionally structured; the entire tenor of the tune unexpectedly lifts for its final minute, however, as a fluid guitar line segues mesmerically into an opalescent sort of coda. “I’m free, I guess/ Not lost… not yet…” sings Girdler, sounding decidedly like an artist finding a defined voice as he now whirls into life.
O. Girdler, Death Spin.
