With soulful vocals, flawless harmonies and a defiant chorus, ‘Tired of Love’ is an attitude-exuding pop anthem currently getting support from the likes of BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. First premiering with Notion Magazine, the girls recently dropped the accompanying video exclusively with Clash, who called it “unashamedly pop, but delivered in an intelligent, intense manner.” The single also caught the attention of The Guardian, who included them in the much coveted New Band of the Week spot, with high praise for the new album calling it “uniformly excellent.”
With comparisons being made to a variety of iconic artists and bands, including TLC, Massive Attack, En Vogue and SWV the girls have a lot to live up to with this record, and thankfully ‘Baby Queens’ totally delivers. With slick production, the girls’ nostalgic vibe mixes RnB, hip/hop, reggaeton and pop, showcasing a glossy polished soul sound, with an undeniable British edge. Estelle from the group describes their sound as “ESG meets Dusty in Memphis driven by Dr. Dre.”
Produced by Super Furry Animal’s Cian Ciaran, the album is a blissed out musical odyssey written by all five members of the band. The sickly sweet overtures one might expect from an all-girl band are ditched in favour of beats that force the melodic content to the fore, with the principles of classic soul and R’n’B song writing catching up with the present day sounds of British street genres. Lavishly layered vocals are wrapped up in slick production that marks out Baby Queens’ intentions to push boundaries and reintroduce to the masses what a vocal group with melody and beats in their hearts is all about.
“Our love of street poetry, spoken word and rap has influenced many of the songs, but also rock n roll bands, soul/Motown, trippy 60s and 70s bands, the roots reggae and roots hip hop artists, basically anything that is heartfelt and soulful and stands for something positive,” says Cara.
Highlights include the aforementioned lead track, ‘Tired of Love,’ and previous single, ‘Melodi’ which The Guardian described as having “The graceful glide of Marvin’s What’s Going On.” Elsewhere there’s the smooth harmonies of ‘Had My Heart’, the all-out soul of ‘You & I’, and the trip hoppy ‘It Feels Like.” There’s also acoustic tinged anthems like ‘By The River’ and of course their break-through single, ‘Red Light,’ which became a viral hit and won the attention of BBC Radio 1, who made them ‘Artist of the Week.’ There’s loads of other gems here too including ‘Forever’, ‘Spiritualize’ and dreamy closing track ‘Samsara.’
“These are songs that reflect our love of music of all genres” says Cara. “We wanted to bring any musical differences that might exist between us and unite them, we think the music speaks for itself, uncompromised, accessible popular music.”
Baby Queens are Cara, Estelle, Monique, Ruth and Vanity. Five girls from Cardiff, two sisters, two cousins and their adopted sister, each equal parts songwriter, musician and music lover. As distinct in their fashion as they are their music, each band member’s individual personality and style can be heard in their music. Estelle and Cara used to be in punk band, Monique and Ruth are into their hip hop whilst Vanity brings the RnB to the group. The last couple of years they’ve been working on the album and cutting their teeth on the live circuit, playing festivals like The Great Escape, Boomtown, T in the Park, X Fest, and Swn festival (Radio 1’s Huw Stephen’s own festival) and touring with Welsh super band The Earth (ft members of Catatonia/Super Furry Animals) all whilst holding down day jobs. However with their music careers kicking off and the album and a tour coming this year, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to balance full time jobs and music for much longer…
“Working full time on our music has always been our dream, it would be amazing to be able to spend more time jamming and making tunes” say the girls. “We’ll stop the day jobs when we need to, but until then our motto has always been ‘work hard, make music harder.’”
Baby Queens // Tired of Love
‘Baby Queens’ is out October 28th.
Baby Queens are:
Monique B – Vocals.
Cara Elise – Vocals, Guitar.
Estelle Ios – Vocals, Guitar.
Vanity Jay – Vocals, Guitar.
Ruth Vibes – Vocals, Guitar.
