Brian from Disappears sent this single in for review a few weeks ago and I'm putting it on after some much needed Memorial day debauchery....a few minutes later after checking out their myspace and their blog I was impressed to see they're joining Deerhunter and Times New Viking for a bunch of November dates...
Right away I'm just getting a handle on the halting, one word at a time vocals and kind of big dreamy reverb guitar heavy goings on with the A-Side track 'Needs'. It's the kind of sound that keeps building with various percussion elements and the guitar melody that has to be backed vocally to get this uber chorus sound. I swear I'm hearing voices behind the main guitar line.
The single note blistering solo towards the end starts doubling back on itself teetering on 13th floor elevators psychadelic. My vinyl copy is sounding a little overmodulated, but it's only contributing to this underwater sweeping sound. The reverb rushes around like it's practically phased.
I love the manipulation of those sounds that take serious experimentation to get just right...where it becomes about a tone and a physicality to the music...to the playing itself... not even the melody. It's just enough out of control to worry about it coming apart completely.
Just as soon as I'm forward thinking about the Vivian Girls, I'm back to The Jesus and Mary Chain. What was it about that sound? The vocals mixed in the back...not pushing the lyric kind of makes for that slightly menacing feel. It's also this understated nicely-lost-in-the-mix and washes of echo that's really settling it for me.
It's taking all that, building into psyche areas that are far from jam background sound. Its distilled down into 3 minutes of pure huge unclimbable wall.
Side Two 'Hearing things' is more of a pummeling attack... but still from the back of the reverb cave, like the A-side. The vocals are are still unemotional but breathy, mixing even more in the wash...almost a practical swish sound behind everything.
The bass here really comes through on vinyl, the layers of guitar all pile together almost maxing out the midrange completely and then the bassline peeks over the wall of cymbal crashes for a few moments... by the end the drumming overcomes the frantic harmonic-like guitar that's been all background strummed in triple time and echoed.... it's really getting into psyche territory here, like a high speed wooden shjips but more satisfying... more of a classic edge even...Well, lets just say a lot more energetic, there's no question about being lulled by that overwhelming sound. It's not trying to put you to sleep as much as it's trying to push you over.
Still available directly from the band.....
If anyone would like to order a 7" from us please paypal the correct amount to:
brianedwardcase (at) yahoo.com
here's what you'll need:
usa - $6.50
canada/mexico - $7.00
uk/europe - $10.00
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