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Review: 'Picastro'
'I’ve Never Met A Stranger EP'   


-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '7th January 2022'

Our Rating:
Having found favour with, among others, Pitchfork and BBC 6 Music in recent years, Canadian slowcore act Picastro have emerged from a relatively quiet period punctuated by just a couple of singles since the release of 2019’s ‘Exit’ with a new EP, which is – as is seemingly pretty much true of every band still in existence – the product of lockdown and the absence of openings for live shows.

For this outing, mainstay Liz Hysen and current core members Germaine Liu and Nick Storring are joined by an immense cast of contributors to present an EP consisting of covers of songs by The Velvet Underground, The Silt, Richard Dawson, Fire on Fire, and Elfin Saddle.

‘Hangman’ introduces a magically lo-fi, slightly off-key, off-kilter jangling sound, where Hysen’s voice melts around Soren Brothers’, the two voices not quite harmonising and with a slight delay between them. The effect lands somewhere between early Pavemrnt, Silver Jews, and The Cocteau Twins.

The Silt are so obscure that they only seem to exist on MySpace and through Picastro’s cover of ‘Tell Me White Horses’, but this sparce acoustic guitar-led piece is a perfect example of mellow, minimal, moody and mystical slowcore, and it sits well within the context of the EP.

The Velvet Underground’s slow, mellow trip of a tune, ‘Pale Blue Eyes; is rendered even slower and mellower, and played on a hazy piano, it’s positively soporific. What comes across keenly is that they value atmosphere and feeling over technicality and musical precision, an approach that may frustrate some, but suits Picastro perfectly. This is never more apparent than on the ominous droning swirl of their take on Elfin Saddle’s ‘Chaos Hand’. It’s so fragile, yet so powerful in its frailty, the crashing cymbals and looping notes providing a subtle yet resonant backdrop to Hysen’s gliding vocal.

Picastro certainly do a decent job of making all of the songs sound like Picastro songs, rather than Picastro playing other people’s songs, although the relative obscurity of some of the selections is also a factor in their favour.

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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