Since Sonic Youth called it a day, the component members have hardly been lying dormant, and while not all of the projects have been especially high profile (unlike, say, Lee Ranaldo’s solo album, ‘Between The Times And Tides’), it can be read more as a commitment to underground, non-mainstream music than as a deficiency of the work itself.
That isn’t to say everything that’s emerged in the post-Youth era has been spectacular, though, and when it comes to Spectral Folk, the latest release to feature drummer Steve Shelly (alongside Magic Markers’ drummer Peter Nolan, plus Aaron Mullan and Peter Meehan), I find myself uncomfortably straddling a particularly splintery fence.
‘The Ancient Storm’ contains six tracks, but spanning a full 40-plus minutes as they do, it’s very definitely an album rather than an EP. It's also a hazy hallway of slow, vaporous stoner shoegaze, slanted but not always enchanting. ‘Please Come Home’ is the epitome of slackerism, notes tripping and rolling hither and thither reminiscent of Silver Jews or early Pavement. ‘Knife’ meanders around in a down-tempo sonic haze for a mesmerising 14 minutes, building to a crooked crescendo around the mid-point before tumbling down into a jangling pool of half-melted guitars
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There are times when it does seem to drag on a bit (man), but in the scheme of laid-back off-key doodling on an epic scale, ‘The Ancient Storm’ strikes the perfect vibe, drops into the groove and winds away.
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