★★★★★
Girlpool's existential two-chord nursery rhymes make even the sparsest Breeders record look like Pink Floyd. This minimalist album sounds as if anti-folk heroes The Moldy Peaches had replaced Adam Green with an extra Kimya Dawson. Lyrically, it serves as a poignant reminder that the trauma of growing old is firmly rooted before you even enter your 20s. (www.girlpoolmusic.com)
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2015-07-22
★★★★★
The tiniest notes, the biggest sentiments: Girlpool make songs that feel audaciously small, like an eyedropper pointed toward the heavens. The 10 songs on Before the World Was Big not only employ a bare minimum of chords (two, pretty much always) but a minimum of notes. If you'd never held a guitar, or even seen one, you could be gently coached to play "Ideal World", the album's opening track, within three minutes of being handed one. The same is true of many others...
- pitchfork.com
2015-06-05
★★★★★
This young Philly-via-LA duo's debut full-length is a promising set of intimate, lo-fi folk-punk, featuring a stripped-down sound with just simple guitar and bass lines accompanying the duo's unvarnished vocals and emotive, smartly crafted lyrics revolving around identity and transitioning to adulthood. 6/4/2015
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- kexp.org
2015-06-05
★★★★★
They might sound nostalgic, but Girlpool - comprised of L.A.'s Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad - are the kind of duo that could only exist right now. Reminiscent of Liz Phair, Shampoo and even contemporaries like Frankie Cosmos, Girlpool present the raw honesty that audiences have come to expect from modern female artists but take it further with their voices never being hidden behind drums; their harmonies only accompanied by bass and guitar...
- www.theaureview.com
2015-06-03
★★★★★
Although born and raised in Los Angeles, Girlpool's Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad recently made the move to Philadelphia, weaving their way into the DIY scene that spawned the likes of Waxahatchee, Swearin' and Radiator Hospital -- and if their debut LP, , is any indication, they seem to be settling in just fine. The duo made the wise choice of roping in Swearin' frontman Kyle Gilbride to produce the record, who maintains the lo-fi, punk-tinged aesthetic of previous singles, EPs and live sets...
- exclaim.ca
2015-06-02
★★★★★
Girlpool became rising stars after their lo-fi single "Blah Blah Blah" was released as part of their self-titled EP. The track hit hard with its fuzz and frenetic energy--it got listeners to pay attention. But their debut full-length, Before the World Was Big , is noticeably softer and clearer; it makes us all lean in a little closer so as not to miss anything...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2015-06-03
★★★★★
I remember the exact moment my parents left me alone at my new university halls. Surrounded by a box full of cheese graters, shower poufs and those IKEA mugs where the handles are just a bit too small to function properly, I was 18 and essentially for the first time. As I looked around my boxed, clinical room, there was the relief of leaving the mundanity of my hometown, the excitement of stepping foot in a new city and the difficult decision whether to accept that nu-rave invitation (it was...
- www.drownedinsound.com
2015-05-29
★★★★★
When you're a kid, your world is pretty much as far as you're allowed to ride your bike. It's the street you live on, the woods you shortcut through to get to your best friend's house, and that gas station on the corner where you buy candy and soda. When you get a little older, and you have to take a bus to get to middle school, that world grows a little bigger and problems get a little more complicated...
- www.ink19.com
2015-05-29
★★★★★
Girlpool have a message for anyone who thinks there's something unappealing about two LA girls lamenting their teenage feelings in earsplitting unison: up yours. Guitarist Cleo Tucker, 18, and bassist Harmony Tividad, 19, haven't made an overtly angry debut album (it'd be pretty hard without a drummer)...
- www.nme.com
2015-05-20
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