Labels: Kranky
Review by: Alex Nuttall
The cover art for this album features a lovely lake at sunset with the silhouette of a lady with a knife standing in front of it. It’s a great image and one which allows me to use a clumsy segue into describing this band’s sound. Underneath all the murky swirling psych guitars and ambient drone and monotonal drumming (the lady with the knife) is an excellent and beautiful sense of melody and songwriting (the lake at sunset, told you it was laboured).
The second song opens with a cough which is apt because this is the sound of a dank, smoke filled underground lair. Comparisons with Jesus and Mary Chain and Flying Saucer Attack are warranted for the reverb-filled guitars. The album’s highlight is probably the aforementioned second track where the drums and low-in-the-mix vocals carry the song along with what seems like a single fuzzy guitar note played at the beginning and stretched to five minutes.
Some of the songs get a bit lost in the pack and the purely ambient tracks such as Wendy and Down Time probably could have been cut, they’re fine but I get the sense it’s not what the band’s best at.
I’ve found many great moments to keep me coming back to this album because I’ve been humming some of the vocal melodies (good luck making out the words). A really solid album.
implodes ‘marker’ by kranky