ALBUM REVIEWS
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ALBUM REVIEWS |
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The Soundscapes
FREESTYLE FAMILY BNS SESSIONS 18.5.09 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk
It’s almost a homage to the 80s and 90s. A loving one, dripping with guitars, laid-back melody, energetic drumming and slightly buried vocals. Think of bands like Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth and you’re part way to imagining this record. Seems like it’s the work of a duo, who spent their childhood and teenage years in Brazil, forming an unlikely attachment to Indie music. Now, many years later, they play in a band that, unsurprisingly, tips its hat to New York indie of the 90s. And they go further, they sweep their hat off and bow low, foreheads on the ground. So much so that you might mistake the album for something by Sonic Youth or a contemporary. The sound is a bit shoe-gazey, a bit New York 90s and the only surprise is the sound that the band can make, considering that they are a guitar and drums duo. It is a full and dreamy sound, filled out with plentiful use of the Echoplex and general busyness on the drums front. The percussion keeps everything shifting, with double time, fills and trills and, at times, a dancey level of beat. The guitars form a shimmering haze at times, at others they attack. Bass and occasional violin have been borrowed in to fill things out a bit and the result is very pleasing, topped with the aforementioned vocals far back in the mix. It’s very pleasing but at the same time, a decade or more too late. It makes for great listening and relaxes at the same time as energising, but then does much of the output of Yo La Tengo. It’s a great sound, just not a new sound and an almost too slavish recreation of a yesteryear. One for nostalgia buffs. www.thesoundscapes.com |
