Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO… Title-wise, a cross between Guided By Voices and Godspeed You! Black Emperor?
Albums Roundup: The Besnard Lakes, Sally Shapiro, Angeline Morrison
Published on April 7th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
The Besnard Lakes – Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO
The two-time Polaris Music Prize nominees have come up trumps again, hitting all the shoegazey sweetspots and investing it all with plenty of original touches to stave off any lingering sense of derivation. It’s utterly enraptured, flame-eyed stuff, like My Bloody Valentine and Sigur Ros bonding over a love of Cocteau Twins, and although the pace remains somnambulant throughout it succeeds in getting its hooks in and blowing you away with such remarkable mini-epics as “And Her Eyes Were Painted Gold”.
Pet Sounds is evoked by the busy drums and chiming chords of “The Specter”, while we mean it as a major compliment when we say that “At Midnight” reminds us of The Boo Radleys’ 1992 LP Everything’s Alright Forever, the way that ‘liquid gold sound’ stomps itself into such majesty. “Alamogordo” brings proceedings to a close with crashing waves of awesomeness – suffice it to say, this is the kind of album that makes you write things like “crashing waves of awesomeness”. High-class stuff.
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO is out now on Jagjaguwar. For more information, please click here to visit The Besnard Lakes’ official website.
Sally Shapiro – Somewhere Else
The mysterious Sally Shapiro’s third album with producer Johan Agebjörn brings to mind the likes of Saint Etienne and Frost with its intermingling of sleek, nocturnal grooves and heavenly, crystalline electro-pop. Quite aside from being one of the song titles of the year, “This City’s Local Italo Disco DJ Has A Crush On Me” boasts a luxuriously G-Funk-y bass line, while the big wobbly beat and gleaming psych-pop chorus make the Electric Youth-featuring “Starman” the standout track of a strong set.
Rocksucker says: Three and a Half Quails out of Five!
Somewhere Else is out now on Paper Bag Records. For more information, please click here to visit the official Sally Shapiro website.
Angeline Morrison – Are You Ready Cat?
Angeline Morrison has an almost impossibly agreeable voice. It’s a sultry, smoky voice, a proper ‘chanteuse’ voice, and it goes with any number of things: jazzy bossa nova, luxurious exotica, even Tropicalia, bringing to mind Os Mutantes on the title track and Caetano Veloso on “The Music of the Spheres”.
Are You Ready Cat? is awash with twinkly glockenspiel, blissed-out Chet Baker jazz, sassy brass and nifty lyrical turns like “There’s a tear in the seam of my new dress / Wonder when the metaphors became meaningless” (“A Tear in the Seam”). “Maybe it’s my destiny to always mess things up” she also wonders here, but she doesn’t even come close to messing up her debut album throughout its duration. A splendid start.
Rocksucker says: Three and a Half Quails out of Five!
Are You Ready Cat? is out now on Freestyle Records.
About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
Pingback: Review: Alcest - Shelter - Rocksucker