Charly Bliss’ Guppy (2017) and early Charlotte Hatherley...
Earlier this year Charly Bliss (Eva Hendricks, Spencer Fox, Sam Hendricks and Dan Shure) put out their debut album Guppy, a sugary slice of power pop that recalls 90’s alt rock like Weezer (a huge influence according to the band) and female-fronted indie like Veruca Salt, Throwing Muses and Belly. In a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the influence of that era, the band refers to their genre as “bubblegrunge”. However, their music isn’t as filled with empty calories as that label would imply. There’s a sophistication in the arrangements of songs (like “Percolator” above) where the twisty vocal melodies and unexpected key changes almost remind me of latter-day XTC. I don’t think the band has ever cited XTC as an influence, but some fairly close parallels might be drawn between their music and another artist who IS actually a confirmed XTC fan: Charlotte Hatherley…
Charlotte Hatherley is a British songwriter who first came up as a guitarist (and the only female member) in an pop rock band of dudes called Ash. Eventually she left that group to forge a far more interesting solo career that first took her through some very XTC-influenced power pop. For those not familiar with XTC, they were a quirky British band who produced post-punk in 70’s and eventually transitioned into making Beatles-esque pop (without losing much of the angularity and odd arrangements that characterized their earlier post-punk efforts). One of the main songwriters of that band, Andy Partridge, was a bit of a hero to Charlotte Hatherley and you can hear lots of examples where his songwriting style crept into her music. I think the resulting sound on Hatherley’sGrey Will Fade (2004) and The Deep Blue (2007) albums isn’t too far removed from what Charly Bliss is doing now…
However, most artists evolve and mature, and miss Hatherley is no different. Her love of the guitar-centric power pop, indie rock and post-punk genres culminated with 2009’s New Worlds. Since then, she moved further into synth pop and sci-fi imagery, even briefly taking on a Bowie-ish persona/alter-ego of “Sylver Tongue”. After an EP under that name, and some sci-fi film scoring and collaborations with synth-pop artist NZCA lines (among many others), she returned to her real name with her 4th solo full-length, 2017’s True Love (watch “A Sign” from that album here).
Where am I going with all of this this? Well, although I enjoy the new direction Charlotte has taken…I kinda miss her power pop from those early albums. Charlotte may have left all that behind, but Charly Bliss’ Guppy hits that spot for me in a big way in 2017. Obviously both artists have their differences (most notably Eva Hendricks'chipmunk voice compared to Charlotte’s deeper register), but I still think early Hatherley and current Charly Bliss would pair quite nicely on a playlist together. Both bands’ sense of humor really comes across in their lyrics and music videos. On that note, I’ll leave you with another Charly Bliss video, “Westermarck"…