The early nineties shoegaze scene burned brightly for a very short space of time, before falling out of favour with the UK music press and derailing completely. Hailing from Wellington, New Zealand, the Golden Awesome's debut "Autumn" gives us another chance to appreciate all of the stronger elements of that scene, without some of the more ponderous elements that have dated some so-called classics from the original era of shoegaze.
"Autumn" was recorded recently, but the Golden Awesome have done an admirable job of capturing the period flavour of 1990 and this sounds like a lost classic of that era.
They operate at the heavier end of the shoegaze spectrum - no weedy keyboards on display here, just huge, multitracked guitar riffs piled on top of layers of eerie guitar drones with a solid rhythm section and the dreamy, cathedreal ( is that a word? ) reverbed vocals of Stef Animal.
Early Ride and Swervedriver are obvious touchstones, and there's also a touch of Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins for those seeking a more mainstream comparison ( Billy Corgan has admitted that the original shoegaze scene was a major influence on him at the time ).
Give it a listen - while I have high hopes for the Smashing Pumpkins upcoming "Oceania", I suspect that "Autumn" will be the more enduring of these two releases.
You can buy it on itunes here.
You can hear another track from "Autumn" on this week's episode of the Active Listener Radio Show. Click here for a listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment