The Dublin-Limerick band girlfriend. return with a new song, their first since January’s ‘Kitchen Sink’.
‘Horses’ is the most cinematic statement yet from girlfriend.
The song establishes an introspection shrouded in expanding noise, built around a low-tuned riff Eilis Mahon first found at band practice after messing with alternative tunings, dropping the low E down to low A and sitting in the doom-laden frequencies of the instrument – which inspired the songwriting itself, inspiring a lyric about powerlessness in the face of a fate clear before you.
It opens with the line “I can see what’s waiting for me” – the song’s central tension acceptance and succumbing. “In a way it’s a song about leaving yourself behind,” Mahon explains. “Making the decision to stop fighting for yourself because you feel that a certain fate is inevitable.”
The title and imagery grew from a fixation Mahon developed during writing – horses as they appear across the popular music songbook, most obviously the Rolling Stones’ ‘Wild Horses’, whose defiant refrain “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” girlfriend.’s stance is the opposite – a willingness to be dragged. She compiled a companion playlist of horse-referencing work in the same symbolic world – PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse, Deftones, Low, Chelsea Wolfe, Portishead, Q Lazzarus – alongside cinematic touchstones like Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse and Malcolm Le Grice’s Berlin Horse.
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The black-and-white video, directed by Kelly Bliss, was shot on a barren stretch of beach that Mahon likens directly to The Turin Horse.
girlfriend. – Formed almost a decade ago, the band have built their reputation on fiercely physical live shows and an emotionally unguarded sound pulling from post-hardcore, grunge, slowcore and emo.
girlfriend. play Left of the Dial in the Netherlands later this year, and the Workman’s on July 11th with more new music to come.
Their debut album To Be Quiet came out in 2023.
‘Horses’ is out Friday June 26th.
See more at girlfriend.ie
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
