Labels: New Model Label
Review by: Joe Callaghan
I nearly switched this off after track two, because I thought I was in for quite a torturous journey. But after the first couple of jams, this gets good. I don’t know why, or if it’s intentional, but the first two tracks sound very mainstream “Brit-rock”, with the cockney swagger of Blur and the general fucking shittiness of the Kaiser Chiefs. A strange charge out of the blocks, that is for sure. From track 3 onwards, Backwash shows a lot of charm and eminence. The songs gently tumble along in a dreamy-pop, sort of way, almost comparable to Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but less shoegaze, and more rock and soul from decades ago. The guitar is considerably fuzzy and messy, but not utilized as a wall of sound like Pains, and more raucous to give the whole thing a garage-rock tone, without being too chaotic.
The vocals are often a little bit much to take. Sometimes, straying into unnecessary falsetto hooting, or just harping on like a slack-jawed Damon Albarn, but they are quite low within the mix of the guttural guitar noise and the woolly, brash drums, so it never gets too out of hand for a picky, stubborn pain-in-the-arse like me. In fact, it generally gets better as it goes along, almost as if they put the tracks in chronological order, as they progressed.
I’ve switched a few albums off after a couple of tracks which near-offended me, and this could have been one of them. It makes me wonder how much great material I have missed out on due to sheer impatience. How depressing”¦