Shoegaze never really died, it just set sail to the Netherlands and, like the social leper it was, failed to make eye-contact. Last year the Radio Dept carried its torch with a new geek-chic and luscious frost-kissed efficiency; a reliable glow to oppose the impending cold. And just as the nights draw in again, how’s this for a toxic burst of renewed warmth, like a showering under a welter of sparks?
Norway’s Serena Maneesh (they’re a filthy band of blokes, not an individual she) are not shoegaze all the way through to the core, but the straps that hold them in place certainly are. Utilising Kevin Shields’ looming wall-of-sound and Jesus & May Chain’s rusting industrial scaffold, every caustic song on this unavoidable, psychedelic record consistently bathes up to the neck in something not altogether pure. It’s like budget backstreet alchemy after hours.
More obvious influences include the abrasive textures of The Stooges, Velvet Underground, The Doors, Sonic Youth and, because Scandinavian bands always seem to sound a tiny bit like each other, Soundtrack Of Our Lives. That applies at least to opening track ‘Drain Cosmetics’ which tosses about Stones licks with chest-beating abandon amidst the apocalyptic clatter of an orchestra of guitars nudging themselves towards a shallow sea of feedback and distortion. It’s a blueprint that sees them well, before becoming their slight undoing. As a whole record there is a lack of direction, you see, occasionally seeming like no more than an inebriated amble.
That doesn’t detract though from the individual impact of the patter-patter atmospheric gloom of ‘Candlelighted’, the BRMC on at the wrong speed rush of ‘Beehiver II’, the Dandy Warhols played backwards 7 minute warp epic ‘Sapphire Eyes’, or the gentle ethereal unfolding and occasional unexpected evil of ‘Don’t Come Down Here’. All very fine songs. By the end things do seem a little drawn out, but it’s an undeniable peer for The Warlocks’ recently released ‘Surgery’ album, and that is sufficient praise in itself. Won’t change anything but could make you feel light-headed, which has its pluses.