Girls In Hawaii (BE)

“From album opener ‘9:00 AM’ to the nearly 16-minute endeavor that is ‘Catwalk’, Girls In Hawaii pick you up, caress you, embrace you, and delight you from start to finish.”
- Matt Hebert, Chord Magazine

“Was it so difficult to throw out one of the best albums of the year? Did we have to wait until six garçons from Belgium put together dEUS’ intellectual approach, Belle & Sebastian’s clean simplicity and Grandaddy’s melancholy to get a record which is absolutely coherent and alive from the beginning to the end?”
- Alex Franquelli

Some already spread the word that they are the latest Belgian pop sensation and according to French magazine “Les Inrockuptibles” you might best believe them. After the international success of bands such as dEUS and Venus, Girls in Hawaii appear set as possibly becoming the first international superstar band to ever emerge from Belgium. Their intoxicating blend of vocal harmonies, subtle synths and acoustic guitars meld over a vast rhythmic landscape, with catchy melodies and commercial-sounding hooks throughout – a slightly American-flavored sound, which evidently finds influences and inspiration in the best indie tradition (names such as Grandaddy, the Eels and the early R.E.M. are the first ones coming to the casual listener’s mind as possible terms of comparison).

Antoine and Lionel started recording their songs on their Dream Machine (an old 8 track-recorder) some three years ago. A couple of months later they were joined by their brothers and two other friends in order to form a band and play live sessions. In the meantime, they had sent some demos to promoters, magazines and record labels and - to their own great surprise - answers began to regularly come back. French music magazine “Magic” wrote at once about their first demo: “Simplicity, efficiency and accuracy close to perfection, lots of ideas, their music reminds us of Grandaddy, Blonde Redhead and even dEUS”.
After joining the stable of 62 TV Records in may 2003, they spent the summer writing new songs and recording the new material. The result was Girls In Hawaii’s first full-length album “From Here To There”. The album was released in France, Spain, Italy and Japan as well as Belgium in 2004 and unanimously welcome by enthusiastic reviews in all those Countries.
In 2004 the band found themselves also busy touring and playing all the major venues and festivals across Europe.

“From Here To There” eventually got a US release last year, generally accompanied by very positive reviews from the specialized press and definitively proposing Girls In Hawaii as a new reality on the international pop-rock scene.  

Girls In Hawaii on the net:
www.girlsinhawaii.be
www.myspace.com/girlsinhawaii