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Review:
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The Sound of the Colour of the Sun
is a lovely album in the spacerock vein. Think Spaceman 3, early
Pink Floyd, maybe some Slowdive, and of course, the guitar of
Robin Guthrie. The sound is a wall of guitar that has been fed
through dozens of effects pedals. It echoes, chimes, wails,
and screams with distortion. It drips out of the speakers and
sits, an icky mess of guitar drool, puddling in front of the
speakers.
I eat that stuff up, so this is a great album for me. You might
not like it so much. Depends on how you feel about guitar distortion.
This album reminds me a lot of that Datura Dream Defferred
disc i recommended that you download a whle back. The connection
is stylistic as well as geographic: both bands come from the
greater Toronto area. However, SIANspheric is one of the precursors
of the Toronto Space-rock scene. They have been around since
1994, so i suppose that a lot of the other bands in this spirit
are influenced by them. This album is sort of a reunion disc,
as wayward guitarist Paul Sinclair has returned to the fold.
It is also their first album proper since 1998 (discounting
1999's outtakes, remixes, and live tunes collection Else).
So what have they got for you, you ask?
They have returned with what might be their strongest album
yet. It's an amazing morass of distorted sound and echoed, "barely
heard in the mix" vocals.
At times SIANspheric get into the distortion that lies past
the echo. Sometimes this works (like in the middle of the album's
opener, Audiphone) and sometimes it doesn't (like the
gratuitous noise-fest that dominates QFD. I know that
loud fuzz is one of the things that separate the serious spacerock
bands from those wussy dream-pop acts, and SIANspheric clearly
want to be spacerock. To Myself and Tous Les Soirs
are both loud distorted rockers, for fans of Verve, Jesus &
Mary Chain, or Spaceman 3. These are good tunes, and if i had
hair i'd be head banging along with them.
Despite their prowress with noisy rocking out, it is the quiet
moments of ecstatic guitar chiming that draw me most to this
album. Songs like Radiodiffusion, Slightly Less Sunshine,
and Ending is Better than Mending are achingly beautiful,
built out of delicate layers of guitar. In fact, Radiodiffusion
will stand, for me, as an all-time highpoint of spacerock songcraft.
This particular song features an amazing rhythm built out of
deep bass riffs and prominant high-hat buried under guitar and
echoed voice. And then, at the end, the song fades out slowly,
only to be reborn as a distorted, mangled, and beautiful verson
of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want from
The Smiths. (It took me many listens to identify what they were
playing there.) Simply amazing.
What might make the lighter tracks stand out is that you can
actually hear the rhythm section on these tunes. Normally, bass
and drums are there, but so buried under rampant chording that
it is easy to lose them. However, when the songs are stretched
out, the rhythm really shines through. The drummer and the bassist
combine to create some amazing riffs here, when they can.
So really -- if you like psychedelic, spacey guitar noise,
you should pick this up. It will be a great addition to your
collection. |
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