Girls Are Short

One of the biggest compliments you can give an artist is that they sound like no one else. Well, Girls Are Short sound like no one else. Sure, there are elements of synth-y electro-pop, some razor sharp sampling and breaks, even a bit of (admittedly sub-par and repetitive) drum & bass-ish rhythmic crescendo. But though the pieces may sound familiar, the final product is refreshingly unique. Like the Toronto duo’s 2002 debut Contact Kiss, Early North American is an un-ironic, sincere ode to summertime bliss and childlike innocence, a call to arms for rolling down green hills and chasing after the ice cream truck on your Huffy. Girls Are Short even have the balls to utilise the voices of their inspiration, sprinkling the album with untrained youth choirs and snippets of spontaneous giggles. One toddler-sized complaint would be that they sometimes thrust the summertime theme down your throat, like said kids’ voices screaming about vacation over and over. It’s one thing to evoke the feeling of a time and place subtly, but when the point is overly repeated, that’s when it becomes consciously a "concept” album that less effectively does its job by almost insulting the listener’s intelligence and ability to "get” the atmosphere the musician is trying to create. Though the moments that Early comes across as such are few, and for the most part it’s a true warm weather delight.