new crystal castles

Not sure how long these'll be up for - but here's a taste of two of the best new tracks leaked from the new Crystal Castles album. There seem to be two different strains of song - 'Empathy' being of the modernised, melodic kind and 'Doe Deer' being of the more scuzzy persuasion. I've banned myself from listening to the lot, although there's shit-loads out there. It's exciting. UPDATE: NEVERMIND

virgo rising

Sydney's Virgo Rising are the first band I've heard in a while that have that sense of temperature that MBV has - kind of, walking into the shade after a long while and realising your skin, your hair, and your head are really hot. That kind of holiday heat that zones you out blissfully yet is also uncomfortable, has a sense of the deadly, of sunstroke in the air.

'Sugar' is a great, diving track that washes through its colours with a similar sense of caramalised, burning heat. The guitars are so well controlled and flickering that they demand a backseat for the vocals, but instead of just making things plainly 'textural' it almost forces a sadomasochistic drunkness onto the two. Quality shoegaze from a criminally underrepresented band.

Virgo Rising - Sugar

all saints day

Some people have bashed Gregg Foreman and Kickball Katy's new project on the head with slightly negative criticism, but I'm a bit in love with it TBH.

What is strange is the amount of times new music of this kind that has clearly learnt from shoegaze but isn't actually it, gets blamed for being a 'Swirlies/MBV/whatever you like rip-off'. It's as if certain melodies aren't allowed.

I'm really excited by this track. Katy's vocals are like lovely, sanded, chamfered pinewood - perfectly unlike Cassie's - it's like when you heard the Breeders for the first time and began to understand Kim Deal's musical logic in a private sense - it's a spatial shift.


All Saints Day - It'll Come Around