How can something so furious feel so life-affirming? There is so much love and passion in Camp Cope’s debut album that, even after a million listens, I still find myself stuck to the chair and gripping onto the table as those drums kick in. Singular and unrelenting, the fuzz drums, magic bass lines and Georgia Maq’s voice , these 8 short songs are everything. Not only was this an incredible debut, it also felt like the start of something. From the now, sadly, kinda legendary “girls to the front” incident, and the subsequent #ItTakesOne campaign, it felt like this year Camp Cope changed from being just a local band that released a great record, to a scene-changing force for good – breaking faces, and absolutely-no-doubt inspiring.
Their latest single The Opener, from the band’s forthcoming album, features lyrics that take on gender disparity over a swaggering bassline, insistent drums and urgent guitars: “You worked so hard, but we were just lucky/To ride those coattails into infinity/And all my success has got nothing to do with me/Yeah, tell me again how there just aren’t that many girls in the music scene.”
Taking some time out from recording last month, bass player Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich wrote a guest editorial piece for the monthly edition of The Music and discussed Camp Cope’s “overall experience being non-male in the music industry”. “In this music world we have all been made to feel less important, less listened to and deserving of space because of our gender,” Hellmrich writes. “This continues together as a band where we are constantly facing discrimination and sexism and then criticism when we are outspoken about it. There have been people asking us if we knew how to use our equipment or if we write our own songs,
And as the year draws to an end, the band were voted “This Year’s Girl Band” Camp Cope had already retaliated in the best way possible, dropping new songs “Keep Growing” and “The Opener” pounding and fully focussed, ready.
CAMP COPE ‘The Opener’. Taken from forthcoming 2018 album – via Run For Cover (EU/UK/USA) and Poison City Records
The Fat Angel Sings 