I am not the most organized reviewer in the world, a fact that i have lamented on this site a few times in the past. Sometimes, things get lost. I find this to be even more true in the era of Digital Music. I get a few dozen record downloads each week, and all of them are just files on my (usually unreliable) laptop. There is nothing to distinguish one file from another just by looking at it... I did not have this trouble with physical releases. Somehow, the clutter of pieces of plastic clogging up my condo was easier to deal with than the clutter of files sitting on my desktop...
I say this because Lull was released in 2013, almost two whole long years ago. By my rough estimation, i have received just under 1,000 promo downloads since i downloaded this record. That is a lot of data to have to sort through. Now, to be honest, i often listen to a sample song or two and then don't actually download the whole thing... (And why the heck does a German Death Metal label send us promos of all of their stuff anyway?) But that is still a lot of data.
And i have lost two (not one, but two) hard drives since November of 2013. And yet, somehow, this album survived in my collection. What are the odds? But i am not reviewing this album just based on the apparently undeletability of the MP3 files. Rather, Lull is a pretty awesome record.
Tideland are a band from Sterling, VA. I had to Google that place, and it turns out that it is a town in the flight path for Dulles Airport. So these are suburban DC kids. Lull is their third record, and they have since released another one. I can't speak to the follow-up, but i like what they are doing on Lull.
Tideland make classic indie rock that blends together a lot of things that i remember from the 1990s -- guitars crunch under power cords and/or shimmering distortion while echoed voices sing just under the guitar layer. I think there is a lot to like here.
Starblood starts the record off with guitars blurring away loudly, a mess of distortion that rings for almost a minute before the drums kick in. The voice is whiney, the notes drawn out and echoed under the guitars. The drums are pretty crazy here, as if the drummer feels that he has to hit every single cymbal as often as possible. In a way, this reminds me of Hum. A great start to the record.
Miless is more frantic, the guitars all over the place as if the band members had just finished listening to Rodan for a long period of time. But on the choruses, it all coalesces into a lovely chiming riff. Carved In Mine has the guitars whirring like something Archers of Loaf would have done.
Get Lost is simply epic, the guitars whirring and chiming as if they are stealing riffs wholesale form Adorable. They slow it down for Desolate a tune that layers in echoed Western guitar to suit its name. Myssouri couldn't have done it better.
Dinosaur is a catchy pop tune with lots of slide guitar. On Edinburgh they have a simply amazing chorus: two guitars crunching against each other in the platonic form of 1990s post grunge guitaring. Pearl Jam would have sold their souls for that riff...
And finally the record ends with Way To Die. This has a nice rolling drum beat and some guitar interplay that reminds me of Superchunk. A nice way to end things.
These guys are doing some really good guitar rock. The album is up on their BandCamp page for a pretty reasonable $6. Fans of 90s indie rock would want to check it out.
Now i need to track down a copy of the follow-up record...
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