Labels: Telephone Explosion – Tin Angel
Review by: Alex Deller
Toronto’s Deliluh play a mumbly brand of post-cum-math rock that’s right up my alley: quiet, spoken-word vocals with fidgety, skeletal instrumentation and a slight, jazz-touched smokiness about it. In some ways it makes me think of how The Van Pelt might’ve turned out had they decided against going through puberty in public, instead waiting a few years and making a wry debut armed with a sense of studied insouciance and messenger bag full of records by Sonic Youth and The For Carnation. Bands like Slint, Talk Talk and The Enablers are definite stylistic markers, though the more I ruminate … and I seem to have ruminated a lot … the more silly and obscure the comparisons get, with The Sonora Pine, Cavalier Song and The Vehicle Birth all springing uselessly to mind at one point or another. Despite its prima facie sparseness there’s an awful lot to unpack, and if Deliluh aren’t up there with the best of the bands I’ve mentioned there’s nevertheless plenty to enjoy if your tastes lean towards the literate, artful, understated side of early 90s Louisville.