Review: The Virgins - The Virgins

Announcing the arrival of their debut album by dropping the f-bomb within 2 seconds of opening track ‘She’s Expensive’, The Virgins pretty much set the tone for the rest of the LP. Vacuous, provocative, self-reverent and a hell of a lot of fun. Arriving from the mecca of cool that is New York City, this four man collective of nymphomanic hipsters certainly know how to let the good times roll. Most surprising of all though, is the fact they actually brought some tunes to the party.

Taking most of their influences from 80s New Wave, a genre that seems to be coming back into fashion quicker than you can say “neon shoulder pads”, this band represent what would happen if you took a male fronted Blondie, roughed them up a bit and removed any sense of innuendo. From track one onwards this album reads like a journal of every night of ‘companionship’ lead singer Donald Cumming has found on his numerous tours round the dive bars of his hometown. ‘One Week Of Danger’ pretty much sums what the manifesto of being a ‘Virgin’ entails, ‘Well is there something that you like about her? Yes / I like the way that her body bends in half’.

Such a large quantity of misogynistic front would wear pretty thin however, if it weren’t for the impression that these boys weren’t romantics at heart, sort of Mr. Darcy’s for the post-modern century. On stand out song ‘Rich Girls’, an ode to pulling a piece of high class totty with its bass line stolen hook line and sinker from ‘Staying Alive’, Cumming serenades his lover by whispering sweet nothings to her ‘I’ll tell you anything I know / any little thing I know’. Similarly on mini anthem ‘Private Affair’ he pines for the girl he can bed time and time again but never ties herself down – my sympathies however, remain with those in famine. Even the few duffers ‘Fernando Pando’ and ‘Love Is Closer Than Death’ maintain the relentless standard of charming frivolity that endears itself through the album.

Ultimately, The Virgins aren’t going to change the world, they probably won’t even change the landscape of indie pop. Their debut may ‘flip the bird’ to common sense but I like the way they’re thinking.

7/10