I don't have much new to write about today, so I thought I'd mention a band I heard on Last.fm Radio this week. I won't be doing this often, believe me.
I haven't come right out and said it, but this blog tries to focus not only on underground artists, but especially on pop music that makes use of "noise" as a medium. This certainly includes shoegaze. I don't consider myself a typical shoegaze fan, though. I'd have to worship Slowdive to be a true 'gazer, but I'm not a fan of their slow, emotional style. I like the punkier stuff.
Having qualified my opinion in that way, I'd like to introduce one of the best shoegaze albums I've ever heard. Around ten years ago, I guess, some number of mysterious young people in Cincinnati, Ohio, released a record on some mysterious label. All I really know is that the band was called Candy Afterlife, and so was the album. They managed to take everything I personally love about shoegaze—the driving, distorted, swirling guitars that drone up and down the scale, the machine-like drums that punctuate every phrase, the reverb that soaks everything until it's dripping wet, the distant, glossy vocals that call out dreamlike for the listener to lose him/herself in ecstasy—and jam it all brilliantly into nearly every track. There's only one ballad in the bunch, and it's a good one, summery and surfer-like, so I don't mind.
Ok, enough mushy praise. I can't find any place in the world to purchase this album, so no one should feel guilty about going here and downloading it for free. All eight tracks are available free at Last.fm anyway, so it looks as though the band intended them to be free to the world.
But if you need convincing, here's one of the really powerful tracks—the final track on the album. This one's practically metal.
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