The Beautiful Girls: Ziggurats

By: Shain Shapiro

It only took three full-lengths, but The Beautiful Girls have finally relinquished their dependence on frat-friendly reggae in their best effort to date, the enveloping and impressively mature Ziggurats (Controlled Substance).

You can hear the difference starting with opener “Royalty.” Instead of toying within and without reggae, a strong, soft-spoken melody moves forward in a different direction, experimenting with all of reggae’s outer fringes left barren and untouched in Mat McHugh and company’s first two efforts. The overall result, even when these songs find the trio too far from home, is brilliant. The reggae is always there, either directly or as a subtle harmonic guise, but it is not all that’s there here. Ziggurats showcases The Beautiful Girls’ expansive skills, that, despite being more than less a one trick pony, was always present. “Bring Me Your Cup” is an ever so gorgeous love song flowing through folk, pop and dub while lead single “Under a Southern Sky” exemplifies the trio at their best: diverse, playful, quiescent and heartwarming. To their credit, they even give ’80s rock a go with “I Thought About You” and the psychedelic Police rhythms of “She’s Evil.” It’s slightly odd, but it all works. Bravo.

JamBase | Australia
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