The scratchy lo-fi indie shoegaze of ‘One Cold Winter is Coming Up’ does nothing to prepare the listener for the album ahead. The slow-build of ‘Evidence Collection Guidelines’ pivots around an insistent rhythm and nagging guitar line, over which Gwendolien’s vocals drift. When the welter of noise breaks, she’s floating, lost and alone in a raging tempest of FX-drenched guitars.
Space Siren are being hailed hailed as the most exciting band in the underground scene in The Netherlands, and the four piece’s second album more than justifies that hype, and more. It may have a daft title, but the 12 songs here are an absolute rush.
‘If Clouds Were Clouds’ is by turns dreamy and violent, while the serrated edges of ‘Not (Too) Amused are sharp enough to draw blood. The angular assault of ‘Pick Me Up’ us gloriously jarring and borders on the psychotic. ‘Psycho’ is suitably hard and jagged, and the final track demonstrates just how magnificently dreamy Space Siren can be.
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Yet none of this really touches the excitement an energy this album crackles and fizzes with. Sometimes, a collection of songs can be so much more than the sum of its parts, and description is depressingly reductive, words being woefully inadequate in conveying the intensity of the listening experience. This is one of those albums. Breathtaking, spellbinding and other worldly, it touches the parts most other albums cannot reach.
Space Siren Online
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