Gürl
Biography
This is Gürl! Froot Loops and butcher knives, bubblegum and razor blades, and fashion posing as music, all wrapped in diva choruses with heavy guitars, rock drums and trap production. Think Ashnikko meets Loathe and Billie Eilish meets Bring Me The Horizon, but drenched in a magnificent shade of pink. The result is dangerous, it’s glam, it’s heavy, it’s camp, it’s sarcastic, it’s narcissistic, it’s ironic, and most importantly: it goes hard! Deep, dark, and seductive verses tempt you into huge anthemic choruses, backed by thicc alt rock guitars and cutting edge production.
The Bristol-based outfit was founded on the condition that they would be called Gürl, offering a cynical reflection on music marketing by choosing a name that ‘cool people’ would wear on a t-shirt. Starting with Neo-Soul, they soon found that they could (and should) go much harder, combining outrageous lyrics, stadium-sized riffs, heavy-hitting drums, and irresistible basslines, all glued together by tasteful (but never meek) trap elements.
“I can’t just be loved, I need to be eaten!” – vocalist and lyricist Joshua Dalton cares about words and means what he says. “Every fight, every sleepless night, every break-up: music is this unrelenting, limitless, untameable source of joy!”
After cracking 1,000,000 streams and gaining incredible support from BBC Radio 1 and Kerrang! Radio, you’d be forgiven for thinking Gürl might want to play it safe. You’d be far off. The first two singles off their upcoming sophomore EP, Parma Violence (due in May 2024), showed off the band’s darker side, shocking and seducing with ‘HEXY’ in September 2023 and doubling down with ‘Medic’ eight weeks later. Now, Gürl are ringing in 2024 with yet another unexpected twist: ‘Boys In The 90s’ is a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the pop-punk heydays of the MTV era, and the stunning video that accompanies it is a meta-ode to 90s icons amid a glam, nu-punk, unhinged performance.
Parma Violence will follow Gürl’s outrageous 2022 debut EP, OUIJA, which led to the band’s signing with Marshall Live Agency and Klang Machine Music management — as well as over 1 million streams and airplay on BBC1 & Kerrang! Radio.
Video
Latest EP/Album
Parma Violence (EP)
Reviews
If quality is key, then Gürl have the keys to unlock any future they desire. 2022 EP “Ouija” doesn’t have any filler. Hearing live versions of “Shoot Me, I’ll Live” and “Last Night I Read Your Diary” it was obvious the confines of Bristol’s small venues are not big enough to contain the sound. And with arena anthems such as the aforementioned “Cavier Gold”, “Antipop” and “Crying In NightClub Bathrooms” already in the arsenal Bristol’s inevitable loss will be the UK’s gain.
"Gürl are one of those bands, you force your friends to listen too. Because to hear them is to love them."
"Crying In Nightclub Bathrooms' is the next step in gürl's conquest of the bleeding edge of alternative music"
"It’s not often that an artist or band comes along who really represents the vernaculars different, unique or interesting. Terms such as pushing the boundaries and explorative are so often thrown around that it makes it even more exciting when someone comes along who actually embodies the true definition of these words, with the pure talent to back it up. Enter "gürl". They are dramatic, they are huge, they are unexpected and they are the living representation of antipop."