Illustration from an ad for Petrolagar constipation treatment, 1940
Are shoegaze bands becoming more derivative, or are they just increasingly becoming described as such? I think the nu-shoegaze movement was always bound to be accused of recycling the guitar sounds of the early '90s, but Austin, TX band Ringo Deathstarr is like a suspiciously too-perfect shoegaze band developed by military scientists in an underground lab. Girl who can sing like Bilinda Butcher? Check! Boy who can sing like Jim Reid? Check! Bassist who doesn't mind being drowned out entirely by layers of crazy-sounding guitars? Check! Drummer whose parts could be probably be sampled and looped if he became ill, Loveless-style? Check! (This makes it sound like there's four people in Ringo Deathstarr, but they're a trio and two of those "Checks!" are about bassist/vocalist Alex Gehring.)
Like the band that produced it, Colour Trip has a similar Frankenstein's-monster sewn-together-ness. Each of the album's eleven songs represents a distinct approach to shoegaze rock, and the band hardly covers the same terrain twice. You've got a swooshing wall-of-guitars-over-backward-vocals number ("Imagine Hearts"), a chugging, distortion-heavy song with mumbly vocals ("Do It Every Time"), a peppy song with acoustic guitar ("So High"), a floaty ambient number with tambourine ("Day Dreamy"), a song with jarring, druggy tempo changes ("Tambourine Girl"), and so on. The last song ("Other Things") even sounds suspiciously like a tribute to post-indie shoegaze homages. The songs are accessible and catchy, the guitars are suitably loud, and Colour Trip is as good a single-band shoegaze genre survey as you're likely to find.
"Do It Every Time" by Ringo Deathstarr
0 comments:
Post a Comment