Review – Page 4 – Aglet Eaters

Soundpool – Mirrors In Your Eyes (2010)

I’ve had the new Soundpool record on repeat for most of the past week. At the start of the year I had no idea they were even planning on releasing an LP, so when Mirrors in your Eyes dropped, I was pleasantly surprised since I’d already been charmed senseless by On High and Dichotomies and Dreamland.

Listening to it, I think of the music critic cliché often used to describe a pleasing follow-up attempt by a band: ‘mature’. Bands ‘mature’, they develop a more ‘mature’ sound and create an album more ‘mature’ than its predecessors.

What does that even mean?

Is a band mature when it creates an album with an expertly engineered playlist crafted to ensure the songs seamlessly flow into each other like semi-set jelly? Surely not – they must need to be able to skilfully include some sort of distinction amongst the tracks – they must be able to demonstrate an ability to work with a myriad of styles and variations without faltering or appearing to be paddling hopelessly out of their depth.

I hadn’t pondered the meaning of that single word when used in the context of writing about records till I listened to Mirrors in your Eyes. I listened and then I listened again. And the I listened a few more times because I could hear something in it. I could hear maturity.

It’s easy enough to be a well-loved shoegaze band – the core sound structures of the genre are so inherently beautiful that even the most derivative ensembles can produce pieces of sheer magic. Piggybacking on influences is not a concern, it is usually welcomed and warmly rewarded. The more you manage to sound like Slowdive, the more we will love you.

Only Soundpool aren’t doing that. Anymore. They’ve abandoned the camouflage of their last albums and thrown themselves into gazer territory that I have never seen charted before:

Discogaze.

Yep, straight of the bat we’re hit hard on the head with a spinning mirrorball that establishes the album as one TO BE SHARED. This is not introspective music you beg for comfort as you to curl up in a dark corner of your barely-lit room when you’re going through one of your emo phases. This is music you haphazardly pogo stick to in the middle of a barely-lit club while psychedelic light stencils flash erratically over you and your posse.

I’d like to make an exception for ‘Makes No Sense’, however. The polish of production has significantly glossed up the version we were so far familiar with. This is a song I want to keep to myself, all to myself and not share with anyone. I love the early 90s college mixtape feel of it. I love the blissfully fuzzed out vocals. I love the guitar that crashes over Kim’s voice in the second verse – her completely incomprehensible words remaining disaffectedly stoic despite the wonderfully rude interruption. And I love the slippery hook that lasts the duration of the song manifesting itself in every facet of the song, repeating itself over and over and like some sort of white powder – sugar, salt or cocaine – leaving you craving more, leaving you positively aching to sing along, but helpless to do anything more than hit ‘repeat’.

It’s followed by a sweet little number that calls itself ‘Sparkle in the Dark’ (can’t have a gazer album without a word like ‘sparkle’ in one of the tracks). It’s the perfect comedown after its brain-blending predecessor – a thoughtfully chosen dessert wine that drops you lightly back onto the Studio 54-y dancefloor. And that’s where you remain as your night draws on. Even a song like ‘I’m So Tired’ leaves you swaying lazily, head tossed back, as you allow your body to recharge.

Incredibly comforting, ‘That Sunny Day’ propels itself along on the wheels of a semi-distant fade in/out bada-bahbah-bah-BAH hook. They must have sensed your second wind because final tracks and possible cousins ‘Shelter’ and ‘Listen’ swoop in at just the right moment offering your weary but still mobile self exceptionally shimmery melodies with beats perfectly timed to ensure you remain happily mobile and conveniently ignorant of how they’re winding you down at the end of the night.

No, no – no mopey faces. The album’s over, but remember that ‘repeat’ button you have at your disposal. I’m using mine to drown in ‘Makes No Sense’ again, but feel free to release the prismatic evening as many times as you like.

Exit Calm – Exit Calm (2010)

The hype surrounding Club AC30’s newest offering had potential fans queued up before Exit Calm’s first full length had even released. Review after review drew enthusiastic comparisons to early Verve and these were indeed easily justified given the abundance of guitars soaked in Nick McCabe’s sweat, the several ‘Oh hey that sounds a lot like [insert Verve song circa 1992-93]’ moments evenly spread throughout the album and also the band’s own admission.

Gracefully steering the band away from dangerous xerox territory is our vocalist Nicky Smith who sounds nothing like Ashcroft. He is instead in possession of a set of vocal cords magnificently reminiscent of the charred voices that the American post-grunge era spawned and that so slyly prevent you from recognising the grainy cry that opens ‘We’re On Our Own’ – “I’m calling out to you/can you hear my voice/am I getting through?” as the soulmate of the heartwrenching plea Richard Ashcroft releases on ‘Starsail’ (“Hello, it’s me, it’s me, crying out are you there?“) mingling it with a trifling ‘So Sister’ undercurrent (“So sister/you’re hearing how I missed her/but I don’t think that she’s hearing my call“).

A sandpaper voice against swampy guitars makes for a queer juxtaposition. It’s a hybrid difficult to wrap one’s mind around if you haven’t experienced it, yet given the sheer chronological correlation of what appear to be Exit Calm’s most obvious twentieth century references, one you’d imagine had already been done. Quirky or not, is it functional?

Certainly a worthy band-primer, the very first track ‘You’ve Got It All Wrong’ pulls it all together for the newbie listener. Hello layered guitars ripped off from the Vervegaze era and hello characteristically pained 90s alt-rock vox. ‘We’re On Our Own’ takes this and adds to it the prototypical isolation aesthetic of the hermitic little scene that celebrated itself, tossing out themes of solitude and willing exile – “I don’t need anyone/I’ll let you know when I need someone/to try to teach me to be alone/when I believe that we’re on our own.”

Doubtlessly not the strongest track on the album, ‘Serenity’ is the most intentionally epic. It builds itself up from a hushed, somewhat restrained initial pensiveness before proceeding to intensify every aspect of its being, allowing the pent up frustration to take over, magnify itself and settle atop a relatively muted voice.

I’d like to take a break here to share with you guitarist Nick Mc… Rob Marshall’s words as they appeared in an interview with Sandman magazine explaining Nicky’s audition: “we didn’t even have a PA. He sang through a tiny guitar amp, what a voice, he sang over the top of all of us, it was unreal.” It’s this voice that almost effortlessly breaks through the potent guitar that would be quicksand for almost any other. ‘Serenity’ is a beautiful track and with its Eddie Veddery vocals could easily be a better song than anything Pearl Jam ever recorded. Unfortunately the rapt epiphany that is “You’re the reason why/I’m both lost and found” closes the song somewhat incompletely, leaving you wondering if the ‘you’ in question is responsible for much else. Surely it’s a positive thing, though, that the primary complaint here is that the song is not long enough, that the album ends too soon?

Back to that guitar – lest you get the wrong impression, it’s no one-trick pony and ‘Don’t Look Down’ proves that it has at least two avatars. It acts as a supplement to the song’s uplifting chorus “Don’t look down/you’re flying you should know now/you’ll ride it out” with by running its billowing chords through your hair and thus placing you unsupported at a liberating 30,000 foot altitude.

Brooding apology ‘Forgiveness’ is not as much a beseeching plea as it is a looming threat. “I’m sorry,” he mopes. “Forgive me” he says. “Forgive me,” he repeats. He reiterates the statement again and again and again and then it dawns on you – this is not a plea, it is an order. The warmer ‘With Angels’ is a splendidly shining example of being plucked right out of the seminalest of the 90s bands and by ‘seminal’ we’re talking 20,000 glazed eyes swaying hypnotically in unison. Look out for the three second snippet of ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out’ and the exceptionally unembarrassed A Storm in Heaven guitars.

As securely promising as the album is, Exit Calm face a very real threat. Behold this comment off the YouTubes posted beneath the ‘Hearts and Minds’ video:

“Exit Calm are already music gods in my eyes, even before they have released their debut album. Seriously no exaggeration, stick with this band, they are probably the most capable band of the last 15-20 years”

The comment has 82 thumbs up as of this post. No pressure, guys.