With their layers of fuzz and a relentless garage rock core, 9-Volt Velvet are capable of conveying an impressive amount of energy. The band’s own take on a retro sound is immediately familar, but isn’t just reliant on mere recycling, and between the more traditional elements of noise, the two tracks that make up this release also share an impressive, almost quirky edge that has the potential to set them apart from their peers.
Tag Archives: shoegaze
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #49
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore the various individual mp3s that have landed in our inbox over the previous few weeks. Usually, we aim to make the Singles Bar as varied as possible but, due to timings and submissions, this selection is rather more rock based. We hope you’re on board with that, especially given the amount of rock music that gets covered elsewhere on the site. An effort has been made, however, to try and bring an interesting variety within those rocky singles, which hopefully gives this SB a typically eclectic feel. This week, we’d like to welcome back Pollyanna Blue, but also draw your attention to a brilliantly haunting track from Lisa Cuthbert. Elsewhere, you’ll find shoegaze inspired noise, a brilliant cover tune, and a couple of singer songwriters… Until next time, we hope this keeps you entertained!
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A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS – Change Your God / It is Time
For those who’ve followed the musical progress of New York shoegazers A Place To Bury Strangers since their early days, the band’s gradual, and very natural shift into more commercial sounds has likely formed a very interesting journey. For those who discovered the band a little later, these “commercial sounds” could still feel cold and confronting, but somewhere beneath their distortion and darkness, it should’ve become increasing clear that these Jesus & Mary Chain obsessives were capable of wielding a great tune.
NEWMOON – Temporary Light
Newmoon strike a perfect balance between atmospheric riffs and blankets of noise on their third album ‘Temporary Light’. The Belgian band have long been a part of the underground shoegaze scene, but it can be argued that it’s taken them a while to hone their art, and create something truly worthy of the genre’s mid 90s peak. This record is exactly that. This is a love letter to the stylistic past of a world driven by distortion pedals and hazy, fuzzed out soundscapes, yet at the same time, a set of tracks that sounds wholly relevant in the era in which it was created. If not quite a “genre classic” in the truest sense, it’s certainly the kind of record that those deeply into one of rock’s more malleable genres can take to their hearts.
Watch: The Veldt live on KEXP
When people think of alternative bands, they’d probably name about fifty before The Veldt came to mind. Even within the microcosm of shoegaze and dreampop, the US band have never seemed to get their full due. They’ve never seemed to gain the same kind of love heaped upon them that Ride, critics’ darlings My Bloody Valentine, and even Slowdive have managed. Yet, those who’ve understood their unique take on shoegaze and indie sounds absolutely love them. The band are the very definition of “cult”.