blanket : "Ceremonia"

This album has been on my list since its March release, but I am just now getting caught up enough to give it a proper listen, The band follows in the post-hardcore shoegazing steps of bands like Hum and Failure. The guitars crash and shimmer with enough conviction, but it's not as original as these guys might think it is. It does sound good and displays ample dynamics. Things move in a brighter almost happy direction on the title track. There is a slicked-over angst, that carries about as much actual anger as any Foo-Fighters song. Their vocals are not as hook-focused as Ole Dave Grohl's. The guitar carries enough of the woozy shoe gaze effects to make fans of 90s rock satisfied if that is where their tastes lean. I think when they head in this direction it works better for the band since heavy is not their forte. 

There is more hard rock radio riffage going down for "Kaleidoscope". The reprise of "Sea of Bliss' is a piano ballad that is more of an interlude, than a song they are committed to.  "Loom' brings back some of the more surreal waves of shoe gaze sounds they have hinted at earlier in the album. It also benefits from a grooving bass, and guitar textures that give the vocals space to get weird. This might make it my favorite song thus far on the album. They tried a similar sonic space with "the Lucky Ones" though the vocal lines are more deliberate. You draw marginal comparisons to Smashing Pumpkins here. The other version of "Sea of Bliss" is like Deftones toying around with indie rock. 'Euphoria" finds them using ample atmosphere and rock guitar to muse about their panic attack. It feels more like a lost Weezer song. 

The last song, finds the strummed guitar jangling against the effects as the whispered vocals drift in. I wait a minute for something to happen, and the jangle drones one. Then they waste another minute on this introspective mood that has long since bored me. Now three minutes and it's evident that if they are going to exceed the length of a Ramones song, just building up to go anywhere, then they are not really going anywhere in the first place. I will give this album an 8, it's solid, and if you like more atmosphere than hard rocking this might be for you. Was released on Church Road Records.  

pst358