Album Review: Charly Bliss Prove Being Young Is Like Being A “Guppy”
Ahhhh…yesss! Youth! A time where no matter what you have to offer and receive, you oddly feel rootless and restless. I, often, wonder whether age truly makes us lose those sentiments, or we get exhausted by them and start ignoring them better. Either way, Charly Bliss’ new album, Guppy, plays to being young and having no idea what that means.
“Be young” seems to be a motto for youth given to them by elders, who wish they had the same stamina and imagination of their younger days, yet Charly Bliss’ Guppy is a reminder of two important things about “being young”. First, every generation of youth filled with anxieties and the almost “Odyssean” inner struggle to worry too much and not care at all. “Black Hole”, “Gatorade”, and “DQ” are raucous embodiments of the grand, eager desire of every twenty-something to show the world his or her face, while simultaneously wanting to push the world in its face. “The world” of course can change in its amassing from a boyfriend to society, but the point is someone that holds power over or within you in how you define yourself is, ironically for their power, not seeing you at all. Such songs shine through the vibrant “child-like” vocals of Eva Hendricks; who matches innocence and rancor like they were made for each other, which brings me to my second reminder. In perspective, and secondly, anger and naivety may not seem like a pair, but the point of youthful innocence is that you do not know, and nothing could make a person more upset or stressed then the unknown, especially about the future. Tracks such as “Percolator”, “Westermack”, and “Totalizer” make the self-combustion of not knowing how to shine all that you have within you, either for yourself or to others, a casual, daily eruption. Moreover, they show Charly Bliss’ capacity to make their chords elastic, almost bendable, in their flow.
Charly Bliss, easily, hypnotizes listeners, from the rambunctiously, roaring instrumentals of “Scare U” to the slower paced, creeping chords of Julia, because you understand and thus follow them through their conic highs and lows. What I love about Charly Bliss is that they portray the spiritual struggles of being young for what it is…. an everyday battle. You can have a slurpy, ride around with friends, cry if your ex does not look at you, or laugh when his dog dies, all at once, because that is what being human is: a paradoxical conundrum. You could be cruel and compassionate, all at once, while being loving and self loathing, at the same time. Thus, I find it befitting that, sonically, that Charly Bliss gives a 90’s grunge-pop aura. Nothing like Nirvana to play when you feel like an agent of chaos, and their is nothing like pop music when you want to be a sweetheart. In essence, Eva Hendricks and all of Charly Bliss are like a batch of Nirvana inspired sweet-hearts ready to give you candied songs on how it can suck to be yourself. For More Information On Charly Bliss And To Buy Guppy On April 21 Click Here.