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Sep 20, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Vivian Girls

Vivian Girls broke-up in 2014, but now they have reunited and have released their first new album in eight years, Memory, today via Polyvinyl. Now that the album is out, you can stream the whole thing below. They have also shared a self-directed video for the album’s title track, “Memory,” which you can watch below. Also below are the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Also, on Thursday we posted our review of Memory and you can read that here.

Previously Vivian Girls shared Memory‘s first single “Sick.” Then they shared another song from it, the refreshing shoegaze blast “Something to Do,” via a video for the track that features the band members frantically running around Los Angeles looking for each other. “Something to Do” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then Vivian Girls shared the album’s third single, “Sludge,” via a video for the track directed by Alex Ross Perry.

In their initial run Vivian Girls released three albums (2008’s Vivian Girls, 2009’s Everything Goes Wrong, and 2011’s Share the Joy). The only constants in the line-up have been guitarist Cassie Ramone and bassist Katy Goodman. The current line-up sees the return of drummer Ali Koehler, who was with the band in the Everything Goes Wrong era and replaced original drummer Frankie Rose (but was later replaced by the band’s third drummer Fiona Campbell). On September 20 Polyvinyl are also reissuing on 180-gram colored vinyl the band’s first two albums (Vivian Girls and Everything Goes Wrong), which were originally released by In the Red.

Since splitting up, Goodman has released several albums with La Sera, Ramone has released two solo albums and two albums with Kevin Morby as The Babies, and Koehler released two albums with Upset. Vivian Girls began playing again in spring 2018 and went into the studio last fall with producer Rob Barbarto (Kevin Morby, The Fall).

A previous press release described the new album as such: “Memory is an album filled with personal reflections on toxic relationships, the false promise of new love, mental health struggles, and finding ways to accept oneself amidst it all. Fittingly, the sonic textures of the album match this sense of desperation and longing. It’s a loud, snarling journey and there’s a sense of streamlined direction and intensity to the performances: it sounds like a band returning to a core idea of itself.”

Revisit our 2008 interview with Vivian Girls.

Vivian Girls Tour Dates:

10/04 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent
10/05 - Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory OC
10/06 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
10/17 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
10/18 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/20 - Somerville, MA @ Once Ballroom
10/25 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
10/26 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
11/01 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/02 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/03 - Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater

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