It is fitting for my favourite Queens, NYC band with such a strong back catalogue of exquisitely infectious singles to finally release an album celebrating that fact. But Bunch of Singles isn’t just an opportunity for Giftshop to pull all their singles together into one place. As the first song on the album states it is More Than That, taking the compelling urgency demonstrated on their singles of the last few years and mixing in a handful of new songs packed with a crunching commotion and occasionally a hint of tender emotion, both of which are demonstrated on their cover of Radiohead’s anthem for the dispossessed and weirdos worldwide.
I feel a certain affinity with this band, perhaps it is because I live in the New York of the North, Glasgow, a city which often doubles as the Big Apple in big budget movies, or maybe it’s just because they have great songs and the high energy videos of their live gigs look like a whole load of fun. Whatever the reason, loads of people want to visit NYC for the shopping or the tourist attractions, I want to head straight to Astoria and find this band playing a gig… Their double whammy of singles from 2021 (reviewed here) feature prominently, More Than That leading the charge by opening this collection in style, while its partner in crime Kewl With Me marks the mid point of the nine songs on the album.
2020’s Stylish Junkie picks up the baton from the opening track, a song that tackles the 1990 heroin chic “fashion” (beep beep) style with a tragic bittersweet tone, kicking off with an almost Motown feel, before the thundering rhythm introduces ferocious driving guitar lines underlining a stirringly poignant melody paired with lyrics laced with dark humour that hint at the underlying tragedy of the tale “tiny monkey has you passing out on the 6… how do you even stay alive?”, “the social system no longer has you in sight….you belong to the night” and “feeling too high now, I wanna come down now…”
As the song fades back into the Motown girl group stylings of its opening, the first of the new songs appears in the shape of There’s You. This is where the tender emotion comes in, sorrowful piano and singing guitar lines match the sense of longing in Meghan’s vocal, with a lyric referencing being lonely and broken. The emotion reaching an apex in the chorus which says so much in few words “and then, there’s you”…
The tempo changes as the brass infused rockabilly blues melody of their revisited Spooky Halloween Christmas (Too) kicks in and, reflecting the Tim Burton classic, A Nightmare Before Christmas, celebrates the two best holidays of the year in a raucous rockabilly riot with a suitably Oogie Boogie-esque voice interspersed throughout. Who can resist “Hallow’s Eve with Christmas Trees?”
The Breakthrough takes the bands punk roots and moves them in a more a thunderous heavy rock direction, The Runaways crossed with Sabbath… creating a deep down and dirty rhythm that thunders along like an unstoppable juggernaut of sound, a positive message in the lyrics about breaking through all the shite life throws at you, the chorus a call to arms for the downtrodden… “nothing can stop us now…are you with me”.
Pick of the bunch for me is the feelgood anthem that is Astoria, a celebration of music, places, people and friendship… You know what I said about an affinity with this band? This song is the reason. The sentiment of this song is the cement that holds life together sometimes when everything around you is turning to shit. This song sums up the feelings I get when I’m in my “happy place”, slap bang in the middle of a crowd of like minded music fans watching my favourite bands and people with a huge Cheshire Cat grin on my face singing my heart out to my favourite songs in my favourite venues. The fantastic accompanying video sums it up succinctly. I actually feel a pang of longing and maybe even jealousy watching oit. This is the reason I love music, and the reason I love this band. Life is the disease, music is the medicine.
Penultimate song is the aforementioned cover of the Radiohead classic, Creep, staying pretty true to the original with perhaps more of a punky edge, as Meghan’s powerful vocal soars through the chorus. That lyric “I don’t belong here” probably something all the freaks, creeps and weirdos (and I include myself in that) in the video in Astoria have feelings of at various points before they found Giftshop and their happy place…
The album closes with an insane 40 second punk rock romp… It sounds like South Park meets NOFX meets REM’s The End of the World as We Know It mixed with Skids TV Stars, but replacing the Albert Tatlock chant with Loaded Diper… jut listen to it…
All the links you need are below, if you know the music of Giftshop already, this’ll make you happy. If you don’t then you’ve got some catching up to do, and this is as good a place as any to start.