Album Review: Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On

A stroll outside their comfort zone, Horsegirl strikes a balance between being playful and tender. ‘Phonetics On and On’ brings enough fascinating melodic and writing ideas to balance out the sometimes unamused performances and compositions.

After experimenting with their Indie Rock toolbox on their debut album, ‘Phonetics On and On’ is Horsegirl stepping out for a pleasant stroll, where the conversations being brought tiptoe between twee sincerity and linguistic playfulness. It’s a balancing point that the band manages to approach well, filling enough playful and tender cues for their exploration of crushes, friendships, and the small yet impactful quips that are displayed in both the lyricism and the title tracks. However, it doesn’t always emotionally grip, as despite the balancing act being done well, the writing comes off as quaint to really bring out the best of the set of chirpy, modest tones that Horsegirl is aiming to do, ending up way more relaxed than exhilarated.

That conflict does extend to the overall music. Mostly produced well thanks to Cate Le Bon, giving the vocals and the instrumentation to sound warm and defined, further allowing the overall record to feel comfortable and cozy. Yet the performances and the melodies do become the main frustrating factors of the album, as the drawled vocals and needling the line between quirky rock stompers and slow-building bliss can be a mixed blessing, especially with how it fumbles momentum on the record and how the tunes and vocalizations themselves doesn’t come off as snappy or effective as they should be. There are still cuts on both sides that do work; the repetitive phonetics that ramp up to a dizzy on ‘2468’ and the rumbling guitars and jangling textures of ‘Well I Know You’re Shy’ allow their ramshackled rhythms to work with glee, and the somber folk strumming of ‘Frontrunner’, the brighter pianos coasting along the nimble bass and marching drums of ‘Sport Meets Sound’, and the synth accents that only give more heart to the tenderness of ‘Julie’ do land the small-scaled thoughtfulness that so many of the songs just couldn’t recapture in the same way.

While there is a clear sense of fun that Horsegirl has put into ‘Phonetics On and On’, that emotional and melodic pull only shows up in specks rather than as a whole. Aiming to be playful in the language and being tender in the small-scale, twee experiences quite nicely, there is some fascinating direction that the band has pulled themselves into, it’s just that the overall execution in the performances, writing, and composition leaves things to be less compelling in the entirety of its 37-minute runtime. Playing around with phonetics may be an enjoyable venture, but there could’ve been more that could be said and expressed.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘2468’, ‘Well I Know You’re Shy’, ‘Julie’, ‘Frontrunner’, ‘Sport Meets Sound’

Least Favorite Track: ‘I Can’t Stand To See You’