Girlpool Open Up Their Universe on “It Gets More Blue”

People do bad things when they’re in love, but usually not as bad as what Girlpool confess to doing on “It Gets More Blue.” Midway through the song, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad admit in unison, “I faked global warming just to get close to you.” It’s a bolt-of-inspiration line—creative without being belabored, vivid, cutting, and funny, with a seriousness underneath: Tividad and Tucker would risk all of our fates for a chance to see this relationship through.

“It Gets More Blue” is a song about how manic we can get when it comes to matters of the heart, and it demonstrates how Tucker and Tividad’s songwriting has matured since 2015’s Before the World Was Big. Between albums, they’ve worked hard on filling out their sound—including adding drums to the mix, a giant departure for these two. It’s no longer just the naked sounds of Tividad and Tucker’s bass and guitar. There are little bursts of distortion, sweet guitar solos, chewy bass riffs, and quite a bit of echo. (If you were to just listen to the instrumental, you might think you were hearing a long-lost Pavement song.) The duo have also changed their delivery: Here, they’ve raised the volume of their voices to a bellow rather than a whisper, making the song all the more anthemic. Girlpool’s music has always seemed like an opportunity to peek into Tividad and Tucker’s private universe, and with “It Gets More Blue,” they open the door—inviting us in like they haven’t before.

Comments are closed.