Labels: Laser Ghost
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Was pleased to see this one turn up for review, but promptly lost it amidst a pile of other things I am supposed to be writing about. You’ll see by the review on the right there that was I rather taken with Presents for Sally’s previous submission, and whilst a full albums worth of their blissed out shoegaze is perhaps a little too weighty, I certainly am not going to object to it either. Most of what is written in there applies to this album too.
Presents get right down to business from the word go, “Smell Your Scent” glides out of the starting blocks effortlessly, almost seven minutes of soft focus warmness. Writing reviews of shoegaze bands has been pretty impossible for a long time now. There’s only so many times you can say a band is ethereal or dreamy before people start rolling their eyes and moving on to the next bunch of words. Where Presents really catch my attention is that they rely more on song writing than many bands making this kind of music. “Smooch” fizzes with electronic beats and a smart bass line that nudges the band onwards, stopping them from getting perpetually lost in swirly guitar FX. To that extent, it isn’t that far removed from the likes of Wild Nothing. Almost half of the album tracks even come in at under 4 minutes, now that’s showing restraint! The first part of the album drifts past in a high earth orbit, after I’m a few songs in I start to lose focus and my mind wanders elsewhere, and it becomes difficult to review once that happens. I suppose that could be seen as a negative, that it fails to maintain my attention fully but that can often be the case with atmospheric music that relies on mood and atmosphere to set the scene. However, Presents up the ante over the second half, with “Your Hand in Mine” rocking out rather handily indeed, and “I Don’t Know Why” has a punky edge to it.
In the end, I like that Presents for Sally have made an enjoyable album, even if it struggles to stand out from the crowd in places. And that’s no terrible thing in an era where standing out from the crowd is pretty rare.