On its sophomore effort, Girls comes on all hot and bothered. Opening with the saccharine send-up “Honey Bunny” and working their way through to the fully-charged “Die,” Chris Owens and company are reticent, at first, to show their softer sides. However, the second half of the record tells another tale, gushing forth with sentimentality and soft touches: gospel singers, parlour piano, nylon strings and, best of all, Owens turning his tender self inside out, exposing all his bittersweet bruises. Girls continues its careful annexation of the pop-rock landscape by turning timeworn territories into comforting new homelands.
This article appears in Oct 13-19, 2011.