new music: stream the menacing post-punk of girl in a thunderbolt’s ‘own your bones’ #soundcheck

Girl In A Thunderbolt mixes post-punk, new wave, and a touch of neo soul in a gothic melee of genres whose names all boil down to “this is the thing that comes after that other thing.” In short, Girl In A Thunderbolt’s latest EP Own Your Bones has old bones, but it is very very new.

By Nathan Leigh, AFROPUNK Contributor

Opening with the monstrously heavy ‘Sayonara My Lover,’ Girl In A Thunderbolt mastermind Maria Uzor updates Songs of Faith and Devotion era Depeche Mode for the modern era. Beats are less programmed and have a more human touch, but the uneasy sense of urgency remains. On the menacing ‘Turn It Back,’ Girl In A Thunderbolt goes full on post-punk for one of the record’s most anxious tracks. Maria Uzor loops and refracts her voice while razor edged guitars sync and de-sync from the pounding beat.

‘All That Glitters’ is the kind of gothic folk (complete with a syncopated bassoon) that drops the temperature of a room by a solid 10 degrees. There is no justice in the world if this doesn’t score a Henry Selick animation at some point. It’s beautiful but hides a palpable tension throughout. A rustic cabin with dark secrets beneath the floor boards. The EP closes out with the awesome ‘Silver Phoenix.’ Post-punk was subjected to a decade of revisionism and hipster makeovers over the last decade, but Own Your Bones shows there’s a lot of freshness in the genuine article.

Own Your Bones is available now through Girl In A Thunderbolt’s bandcamp page.