The heavy shoegazers are back, and this time around, there are more emotional layers to the hovering croon of bassist Isa Holliday's dream-laden delivery. This album sounds great as it balances out the dynamics you want from this kind of 90s-inspired affair. They give her voice plenty of room to haunt the songs, as the drums and bass keep a driving backbone of fuzzed-out heft coming at you. This is the Belgian band's third trip into the studio, and they have mastered this, throwing in things like a sax at the end of 'Covet ' to create another layer of sound.
They bang their instruments with a great deal of grace on the woozier "Cherry," which casts a hazy cloud of guitars over the faint, breathy melody of the vocals that shine from within its tempestuous whirlwind of effected chords. "Leap" finds her voice pushed to the front of the mix, and the atmosphere dialed up/to drape the contrast between the verse and the more overdriven chorus riff. At almost three minutes long "Hollow" is an instrumental interlude that sets the stage for the more shimmering mod of "Haven". It ebbs and flows from a more fragile ringing of the guitar. It is both bright and sonically dense, and at high volumes, very powerful.
"While You Dream Vividly" starts at a very low volume, and minimal tones swell into searing burst of shimmering sharpness. It is, however, also more about the song than the story the song tells. The patter of drums holds everything together. "Bloodmoon" wanders off into a more opaque twilight of sound. The vocals are obscured in the waves of reverb-heavy guitar. They indulge in another ambient interlude before the last song. It opens with a light ringing of guitar and a hushed vocal in the distance. It almost feels like something from Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" album, but without the punk counterpoint and just the Northern Lights swirls of sound. I will give this album a 9, and see how it grows on me. It starts off as more of a rocker and then rides off on its own ambiance.
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