Review by: Sion Thomas
Here is the debut album by British girl two-piece Maria And The Gay. This is a mixed album of awkward, experimental, lo-fi indie. No surprise then it was recorded in the bedroom of Maria. Greatest Hits Vol 1 is a little all over the shop in every aspect from song length and structure to the quality of the music. It starts off with a terrible song called “Daddy Bulge,” I can’t really figure out what they were attempting to do on this song. Everything about it seems awkward and ill-fitting, a repetitious programmed drum beat annoyed me from the start and the vocal patterns are just sparse and consist of the line “daddy’s bulge” being shouted every 30 seconds or so. Luckily the rest of the album does not follow this rather peculiar structure. The rest of the album is sort of cut into two kinds of songs; on the one hand they play simplistic Wire-esque songs, such as “mother fuckers,” “I wanna be in a democracy” and “oh boy she moans” which have a simple hooky distorted guitar line that the song is based around, then they sing
kooky lyrics over the top like “listening to this music is making me feel blue” and pronouncing motherfuckers as motherfoooooooowkers. I do not like these songs; they are too much like all that lo-fi indie that everyone seems to do at the moment, which they think is all original and experimental but it is not. The other sort of song on this album is more poppy and electronic based, basically the songs that are based around the synth instead of the guitar. The stand out track is “Berlin” it sounds like it could have come off the Sonic Youth side project Ciccone Youth with its weird 80s synth sound and pop ideals. “I was only passing by” is in the same vein but is slightly more Depeche Mode-sounding with its driving programmed drums. With “DIY goodbye” and “Doomed” they pull of the moody synth sound perfectly.
To sum it up this album is muddy, messy and rough but not in a good way. Do not bother with half this album but “Berlin” is a synthy pop gem and the songs that sound like minimal wave are worth a listen.