Presents for Sally at Whisperin and Hollerin

Well hasn’t Sally been good? She must have been to deserve all these musical presents from this band from the West Country, so it must have been something extremely good.

The band’s second album opens with We Fought Lucifer (and Won) a title that might make you think they are a doom or battle metal band. The track does feature doom-laden guitars but you’d be wrong about the metal as they are noisy dream popsters: the feedback static giving way to a nice wash of guitars and a cool tune before the static and feedback return, rather like Wharton Tiers on an angry day.

Wishawaytoday (yes all one word) is sort of Galaxie 500 speeded up a little. It builds nicely to the point when all the squiggly analogue synths come in before the guitars take back over and the vocals soar and soar. Anything Anymore is a nice duet that has a very cool feel to it. A very Lush song in more ways than one.

Things slow down for The Sun Dehydrates like Crystallized Movements on Valium. You can almost feel the sun stroke coming on as the song progresses. Sleep Tight has a similar laid back indie vibe to it: a nicely washed out feel.

Everything I Said has some good distorted guitars at the start before the laid back vocals that sound like they are recorded in a bathroom somewhere while the drum pattern is a little bit odd but somehow it all works together quite well. I also love the spaceship sounds at the end.

Sing is almost like The Vaselines only a bit dreamier. Colours and Changes is rather gentle and has some cool changes in it as well as some backwards guitar bits as it ebbs and flows through my mind. Floor Faller opens with some bird sounds like you’re lying on the floor looking up at the birds in the sky and the gentle sounds and harmonies that then float by you as you’re glued to the floor keep you staring up at the sky.

Softly Spoken/Outside Honey amps thing back up again with good reverb-heavy guitars and harmonic vocals in a sort of Luna meets Slowdive kinda way. It’s rather laid back but not remotely horizontal as it builds and builds towards its maelstrom of distortion at the end. The album closes with NSIC that is a barely there song gently strummed and laden with echo. It’s a real Vaselines type song and it provides a cool end to a pretty cool album.

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