Speck Mountain – Some Sweet Relief

• 2nd Jul 2009

There’s a shoegaze revival floating over from the US. Its impact might be slight on the masses, yet this is a blissful return to the 80s heyday. Speck Mountain’s lulling tracks, which seem to merge in to each other without any clear beginning and a long sighted end, will soundtrack nothing but play, simply, as a subtle background. Pains of Being Pure at Heart might be the flavour of the month to front this passive assault on the ears but Chicago’s darker offering is the antihero. ‘Some Sweet Relief’ probably won’t feature in the top ten year end lists, but return in a while and this super slow burner might well re-emerge to charm your socks off.

Speck Mountain brings darker, less cutesy appeal than the weapons of mass market their rivals possess. They make music because they have to; that desperation of emptiness is ingrained in the mournful guitar lines, suffocating bass and Marie-Claire Balabanian’s vocal: “I’ve seen a day burn out to a hundred nights.” If you’re impatient you’ll be squirming very quickly; if your mind wanders, well then this is perfect. On reaching track four things have gotten pretty claustrophobic. ‘I Feel Eternal’ offers some respite with New York brass and an almost uplifting melancholia. The album wallows in Castanets’ ‘City Of Refuge’ last-post dessert blues with beautiful hypnotic, circle turning guitars and enveloping bass – repetitive to absent ears, intricate and subtly changing to a listening pair. There’s something evangelical running through this ode to innocence and the inevitability of growing up and settling down. Balabanian’s vocal is powerfully soulful but the dormant wildness of greatness is never given free reign to explode. The whole feeling is being lost in the modern world – in a barrage of noise this is exactly what we needed. This shimmering piece somehow leaves you wanting more when it suddenly closes. Who has the balls to make a record like this these days?

‘Angela’ is something of a masterpiece amongst less memorable tracks. Evangelical vocals, crystalline mournful guitar lines and suffocating bass draw you from the haze while her name is longingly chanted in to Cocteau Twins territory. Their inspiration is in the desire to stay young and selfish, to do what the hell they like for as long as they want. If they feel like staring at their boots while crunking out 15 minute soundscapes then they will, if they take ten years to write that third album let em. Few will clamour for it, as they did for this foursome’s apparent heros My Bloody Valentine, but if it comes in as beautiful as this then it will be more than welcome.