★★★☆☆
The three young women in Girl Ray — they are all 18 — met at a School of Rock-style music club at their north London secondary school. Realising that nobody else was going to turn up, not even a teacher, they gave forming a band a go.
Songs about the pains of teenage life emerged, on themes including unrequited love (Just Like That), feeling sorry for yourself (Cutting Shapes) and being convinced your life will never change for the better (the 13-minute Earl Grey), all delivered by the singer/guitarist Poppy Hankin’s polite, rather posh vocals.
The songs have innocence and simplicity, with unpretentious lyrics aligned to pretty tunes reminiscent of the Velvet Underground’s gentler moments. Although they are somewhat limited in scope you cannot help but warm to the charm of it all. And you have to admire a band who pretended they were attending a university open day so they could bunk off A-level studies sessions and rush down to a studio to record their first single. (Moshi Moshi)