last days of april - ascend to the stars
looks like sweden is the place to be to get a record deal these days ! hives/soundtrack of our lives/etc and now last days of april.
this takes the same sonic palette of shoegazing on these 9 songs but rather than dragging out one idea for 9 mins, the band capitalise on the song writing first and foremost then add the layered instrumentation to fill out the songs into a glorious celebration of melody and well structured noises.
the first listen reveals a simplistic guitar based album with nice songs .. but listen further and explore the wonderful original sounds through the subtle production (headphones are necessary), the sounds avoid the manufactured/processed route it always feels like a 'real' band playing not a protools creation! the way that track 6,7,8 lead into one another make the 3 songs a serious highlight and centrepiece of this album .. in fact track 6 ('i'm calm now') hits the highpoint at 3 mins and teasingly the band quickly cut into the next track .. grrrr this one track could go on for hours longer and i dont think i would get bored !
i cannot emphasis how great this is, i have read comparisons with mercury rev, unfortunately i cannot confirm/deny this as i cannot bear mecury rev's jonathan donahues voice - here though there are no such opinion splitting issues .. this is fantastic stuff