Review
The Morning After Girls
Alone

Independent (2009) Loren

The Morning After Girls – Alone cover artwork
The Morning After Girls – Alone — Independent, 2009

The Morning After Girls are a band from New York by way of Melbourne. I have to assume their name is more a reference to the haziness that follows a night out, as opposed to the pill bearing a similar name. Musically, they are descendants of the fuzzy psych-rock of bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, focusing on well placed feedback, explorative but tempered jams, and a sense of aloof disconnect. However, they don't simply mimic their predecessors.

On "Alone," they nicely layer extra percussion and keyboards while 60's harmonies and psychedelic guitars replace the shoegazer fuzz. The complexity works well, and Sasha Lucashenko's calming voice is suited to the style. "Alone" segues into "Death Processions," which is perhaps the most Jesus & Mary Chain derivative song, with a clear influence showing through the guitars and Lucashenko's blend of coarse, yet diffused vocals. Generally speaking, The Morning After Girls play less abrasive rock than JAMC, perhaps more comparable to said band's latter years. At times this atmospheric, disconnected feel goes so far as to remind me of Pink Floyd, as on the melodramatic "You Need to Die," where Lucashenko lushly sings, "You need to die/ for the rest of us/ will now be justified" and eventually ends on the stoned revelation that, dude, "life is just a feeling." The harmonies in "Still Falling," reinforce the Pink Floyd association.

The album loses itself in terms of organization. The middle is well structured, with the layered sounds of "The General Public" through "You Need to Die" playing well off each other and crafting a signature sound of layered psych-rock with 60's and 70's undertones. However, the beginning and end struggle to find a defining tone, and the closing song, "Tomorrow's Time," lasts seven dreary minutes and is followed by another eight minutes of silence that, instead of building to a bonus track, only earns you five seconds of clashy guitars. It ends on disappointment, and that leaves a bad taste. "Who Is They" feels much more like an album closer.

6.7 / 10Loren • June 9, 2010

The Morning After Girls – Alone cover artwork
The Morning After Girls – Alone — Independent, 2009

Recently-posted album reviews

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more