Sound Study sent this one in a while back from another Gainsville, FL band, Averkiou. Name, schmame, you have a cover that freaking adorable and I'm in, how you pronounce that name? Well, you're on your own. I'm too busy looking at that serious kitten really going for it. Yes, he's cute, but he can still take out a nest full of unsuspecting songbirds who aren't even going to know what hit them.
Averkiou is playing both sides of a jumpy pop and dense shoegaze fuzz, reminiscent of those late '90s English movement with Lush or Curve, ditching the experimental layers of feedback in favor of melody.
Like A-Side's "Fuzzy Photograph" is typical of their muzzled guitar sounds, lots of layers and a chorus vocal that nearly gets lost alongside these lines of static. High and airy, they're veering into serious distortion territory, just when this wall can't possibly be penetrated, a huge fuzz guitar comes forward for a solo getting closer to the speaker. This track is full of some real struggle and tension, coming off like a sweeter Broken Water, more melodic than scuzzy, more chorus than distortion.
The song title is really perfect for this sound, even some slight gish-like moments with a screechy wah solo, breaking as high as this treble will let it.
Next up, "Go Matsumoto" features high, almost falsetto vocals, diving right into this middle wave number, you can hear the waveform almost peaking out at the edges of this mix, but that really melodic tone mellowing it out, leaving the massive guitar experiments behind and coming down on the side of Modern English with a female backup vocal. Even slightly REM with their sweet, put together sound, serious intellectual footnoting.
From Florida, which makes perfect sense... and doesn't at the same time.
B-Side's "Present Tense" gets a little more power pop, like the Poster Children or something Bandwagonesque they make a real fast tempo feel dreamy somehow, as deceptively quick as they're going for, it just sounds like a MBV at the wrong speed, and that's a good thing. It's definitely hard to keep this melody distinct under the distortion cycles that barely have a chance to fade before they're moving on. Or it's those harmonies with impossible to distinguish lyrics here... backing angelic oooo's.
"The Rabbit & The Lion" has clear jangle to the guitar and a choppier rhythm that's searching for a larger loop to appear. Tis one has this vague ominous religious feel talking about a rabbit or a lion. This one has a bunch of big, together changes that are almost showing off! Distortions of all flavors poking through for a second ....made by a nice bunch of people.
Get it from Sound Study Records on a greenish brown vinyl playing at 33 1/3 the appropriate shoegaze rpm, you don't need those precise peaks and valleys running as quickly as possible...just master that baby striaght down the center for maximum density.
Listen below:
