Country: US
Artist: Band
Career: recording since 1996, debut full-length LP
Language: English
Genre: Shoegaze
2000 was a lonely year for a shoegaze band. It’s a shame, cause if the music industry had been paying attention, they could have jumped on this band instead of, say, the Strokes. I think we’d all have been happier. They’ve got it all. Noise, heroic falsetto singing, strong harmonies, hooks and songs, great beefy production, and above all, that feeling as if these guys are incredibly happy to be alive and play this music, and that’s what they’re born to do. And a name that sounds stupid the first time you hear it, then later on you think ‘hold on, maybe it does have something in an arena filled with names like Coldplay and U2.’
The easy addition is shoegaze + Beach Boys = Lassie foundation, but the Beach boys comparison is really only unavoidable on should’ve been a huge single ‘Come on let your lime light shine’. Apart from that it’s shoegaze, only with great singing, pop melodies and a sense of fun (all of which the Beach boys had of course).
I would’ve loved to have heard singles like ‘She’s the coming sun’ and ‘Come on let your lime light shine’ everywhere in the summer of 2000. The first one just puts that spring in my step every time it plays. The second one launches with an irresistible attack of riff and ba-ba-ba’s, then gets sucked into a vortex of overlapping vocal lines, somehow coming out the other end slow as molasses but equally irresistible. Halfway through there’s a break, repeat of the intro and this time they deliver on the energetic promise and build right to the end. I love it.
I would’ve loved for this band to have been forced to grow up in public… given some opportunities and some big expectations, who knows what might’ve been…as it is, they released a couple more records that sank and packed it in… I’ll be looking out for those. These days, now that joyless shoegaze has won, they sound more than ever like the path that should’ve been taken.
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