Manafonistas

on life, music etc beyond mainstream

2016 24 Feb

Lift me high!

von: Michael Engelbrecht Filed under: Blog | TB | Tags:  | 2 Comments

„Dark star Californian sirens who’ll destroy you with sweet narcosis.
Get ready to die.“

Nice invitation to David Holmes´s new band „Unloved“ and the don’t-give-a-damn title „Guilty of Love“. In fact, three records will appear on the same day (March 8th) that all signal time travel obsession with the wild part of the 60’s and (in parts) even the 50’s: Holmes´ smoky, sepia-tinged noir mix of coolness, emptyness and despair; the freewheelin‘ battle of moods from the Mersey River´s „The Coral“ on their wildest album to date, Distance In Between, that lays it all down: a touch of Hawkwind’s formative years, the darker moods of the slow-burning TV series Mad Men and other little worlds softly falling apart. Finally, M. Ward and „More Rain“. Believe it or not, this troubadour has no interest in restoring and rewriting lost nostalgia, it’s just dead serious business (and, oh, what a joy, too!) mixing time distortion with crafted songlines and ghosty textures: „Lift me high, so that I can see the dark shine beyond my darkest day.“ 

 

This entry was posted on Mittwoch, 24. Februar 2016 and is filed under "Blog". You can follow any responses to this entry with RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Comments

  1. Michael Engelbrecht:

    Listen now to M. Ward on NPR FIRST LISTEN

  2. Michael Engelbrecht:

    Can it really be 14 years since the Coral’s debut album? The playful, genre-bending band of that record have since metamorphosed, quite naturally, but the spirit of psychedelic exploration is very much present on their first set of new songs since 2010.

    The mood is glowering and foreboding: the drone is very much in evidence, along with north African influences that give Distance Inbetween the air of a sandstorm swirling around the listener.

    The opening trio of tracks are like an extended mood piece, and even when they give way to the title track, a ballad, there’s no let up in intensity – James Skelly sounds like a garage band Scott Walker, crooning over minor keys – and it’s straight from that to the controlled, fuzzy attack of Million Eyes.

    The lyrics do, very occasionally, feel a bit phoned in – does a holy revelation really have to be such a sweet sensation? – but that’s a minor quibble about an album this purposeful and tense.

    – Michael Hann, The Guardian


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