SHE DREW THE GUN
Mirrors
(Submarine Cat)
The only really disappointing thing about She Drew the Gun’s new single Mirrors (released 13th August) is that the band don’t have Norwich on their list of venues for the upcoming promo tour for the new album Howl (released 15th November).
I’ve always struggled with the genre categorisation of music, so much so that I’m not even sure ‘punk’ was/is anything more than a convenient label for music that wasn’t mainstream pop in the mid to late 70s. However, categorising can be useful and helps us avoid music that we are probably not going to like. She Drew the Gun have been described as ‘Psych Pop’ and when they began in 2016 there were a few bands around that were described as ‘Psych Pop’ or ‘Dream Pop’ or even ‘Indie Folk’ and I think any of these genres do well to describe the quiet, contemplative minimal sound of the band, their founder (singer song-writer Louisa Roach), and the new single.
The first of their songs that sparked my interest were ‘Poem’ from the 2016 first album ‘Memories of Another Future’ and ‘Trouble Every Day’, released in 2019. The Specials did a cover of ‘Trouble Every Day' for their last album, ‘Protest Songs’, so were obviously fellow fans. Roach’s lyrics and songs range from the personal to the political, from love, to anger, to introspection. Mirrors is one of the more introspective songs described by the band as “Like a therapy session with your shadow self… trying to heal, and about getting sick of trying to heal but also about how healing in a neoliberal world is also recognising your oppression”.
It is a song about understanding your own mental health, which is important to all of us in a world that is getting more difficult to cope with and understand by the day. I’m really looking forward the album release, and to reviewing it. I already have a lot to say about the fantastic title track, but I’ll leave that until November. Whatever the style and focus of the song, Roach always has something to say that is worth listening to and has an empathetic understating of the world around her. Mirrors will be placed on my Spotify ‘chill’ playlist as it will fit in very well with Kae Tempest, Patti Smith, Skunk Anansie, Bille Eilish, Urban Species and, of course, other She Drew the Gun tracks. I think the best way to categorise songs is by which playlist you add it to.
If I had one tiny gripe it would be that the voice and lyrics need to be a little higher in the mix in the heavier, less minimal, parts of the song, but that just because I could listen to Louisa Roach singing acapella. Please get a Norwich date sorted for the new tour, Louisa!
