Secret Meeting score: 78
by Philip Moss
On the hottest day of year, Greta Kline aka Frankie Cosmos returned to Manchester, and brought her melancholic, sunshine pop to her biggest show in the city, thus far, at Gorilla.
Having recently signed to Seattle super label, Sub Pop Records, she opened with Caramelize. Taken from this year’s LP, Vessel, it was even more sugary sweet than its recorded counterpart- with synth/guitar player Lauren Martin’s falsetto harmonies bringing a whole new dimension as they floated over the New York four piece’s harder live sound.
Kline’s ear for tight arrangements is what really sets her apart. What she can say in songs that last under two minutes, it would take many a full record. But on Apathy she also showed off her carefully honed and economically crafted guitar parts – hop scotching as she transformed an elegant twee moment, with cutting, Pavement-esque slacker flashes.
However, it was the clutch of songs from 2016’s anxiety filled, breakthrough album, Next Thing, that gained the best responses of the night. Pop miniatures, Sinister and Too Dark both snapped, crackled and popped along at rapid pace and set heads a bobbin’, but it was Floated In that brought the first sing-a-long moment of the evening.
Vessel’s second single, Being Alive, is thrashed out in a Ramones-esque garage pop stylee, before Kline et al are joined by tour support, The Goon Sax, to perform the song’s refrain. And after a goofy attempt at an impression of Emma Watson doing an impression of an American accent, Kline headed back to Next Thing tracks Too Dark and Fool – both of which have their harmonies provided by the audience – before exiting the stage. And, despite the crowd’s best efforts to tease the four piece back, there was no return for an encore.
Clearly enjoying life on the road, the quirky Kline exuded, ‘Being in a band with your friends is so much fun. I love life. I love living. I love being a girl. That’s what life is about.’ Now from a distance, you’d be excused for thinking that Kline could be just another girl fronting just another indie group, but her astute ear for melody, and willingness to allow her feelings to pour out through her pen, means Frankie Cosmos has more than enough to stand out from the crowd.
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