For liking, nay, loving this, I have been accused of being a “great soft shite” by a friend, and the NME has weighed in on the entire God Help the Girl project in a most negative way. BUT I LOVE it. And I am especially taken with the singing of Catherine Ireton, whose easy flow from conversational to soaring is a wonderful thing, and reminds me of a Sinatra in his prime or a Merle Haggard before he wrecked the upper half of his range.
And the entire sensibility of the group and the video I find sweet in the best way. They played one of their first gigs in a small chuch, which is weirdly appropriate (see it here), and there’s a sneaky sort of proselytizing going on, but one I personally can handle.
“I feel like I have God for a pal because no one else would have me,” Murdoch writes in an online journal entry. “Maybe that’s the basis for a lot of religion. He’s the invisible friend that it’s OK to have as an adult.”
In fact I like that quite a bit.