I’m a Greep, I’m a weirdo
(Full disclosure first off, I once ran into Geordie two years ago outside of a Barcelona bar, where I drunkenly asked him what his favourite fruit is, and then called him a boring cunt when he said apples. I was unsure about adding this because it feels a little self-bolstering to write publicly, but for journalistic integrity it’s best I keep all cards on the table, and try not to let this taint the review.)
Notorious apple-enjoyer Geordie Greep hit an early climax of fame as the frontman of black midi. And frankly, we could be here for days to try to make clear just how much they, alongside a handful of other late 2010s frequenters of The Windmill in Brixton, were able to breathe into the limping concept of rock itself. Often avant garde, often bizarrely jazzy, often a fair bit proggy, always exciting. Their mere name on the top artists section of a Bumble profile signposted the exact type of music guy better off avoided, far more efficiently than scanning photo backgrounds for a Scarlett 2i2.
An unending hot streak which ended cold, when Greep announced their disbanding only this August on Instagram Live, and a promise of solo offerings soon. Here we are.
Speaking of men to run away from, Holy Holy, our lead single, came out to a murmuring mixed reception online, and I certainly found it a struggle to know what to make of the extravagant showiness and intense character-work as an isolated starter. In the album’s context, following the setup work of the absolutely electric Blues and Terra, the stage feels properly set for Greep channeling the voice of a wholly narcissistic womaniser-hopeful who declares proudly, self-defeatingly, that “all the Jihadis” think him holy. One clear throughline of this album is the variety pack of navel-gazing man-children who are handed the narrative microphone to hang themselves with: repressed businessmen, validation-craving egotists, blood-thirsty generals.
Listening through, there is a clear impression of the rise of Andrew Tate and all the copycat misanthrope followers he spawned in. Misplaced self-regard, simultaneous contempt and lust for women, and the most freudian over-compensations are the paper-thin tricks these men play on themselves and their most gullible around them, and The New Sound often lays the performance of masculinity bare to see, wriggly and embarrassing. Everyone repeat “I’m a real boy!” to your nearest mirror.
To really underline the performance component of male performance, this is all treated like a spectacle to behold through the distinctly broadway musical aesthetic: maximalist and punctuating instrumentation fills the orchestra pit below Geordie’s always larger than life vocals, at points frankly diva-ish, and at all times spotlighting the hyperbole with amazing confidence. This is all channeled through a distinct bossanova jubilence, Geordie having enlisted the help of a whole crowd of Brazilian session musicians to really inject some joy into tonight’s human unravelling viewing.
It could be forgiven if the whole thing gets a little much, as the onslaught of sonic panic is unyielding. Near around the end of Motorbike, a tale of mid-life crisis delivered by old black midi touring mate and HMLTD keyboardist Seth Evans, the barraging doesn’t quite get boring so much as mildly easy to lose track of. This is pulled down once we hit The Magician, a slow-building and wonderfully pretty lil twelve-minuter.
All in all the sheer maximalism is amazing to see, especially for a solo breakaway project, and the idea of stripping down the scope of the album against the intensity of black midi’s past has not even been a consideration.
On a different tack, another well-noted carryover from the black midi days is a very ready sprinkling of lyrical fascination with broken men enlisting the services of escorts. And hey, If you want a firm moral stance on the lyrical propping of sex work in this manner then you have found the entirely least equipped reviewer to help you with that, but the over-dispensing of this as a narrative shorthand for male failure does undeniably begin to feel a touch too easy at this point.
I hope the over-scrutanisation of that last point can tell all for how much I do love this album, how it can deeply mock its targets while not quite removing them from sympathy, how it brings such a vivid sound out of total misery-spirals, how if anyone should have tried making a Joker musical film it should have probably been Geordie Greep.
A 9/10 from me.