Love that drone... This beautiful album blends Codeine-level melancholy with My Bloody Valentine-style guitar-strumming (without the overload), complete with whispered vocals, swells of spacey noise, and a warm, crackling fuzz sound throughout. The overall effect is way cool -- think of Sparklehorse with space fever, and you're close to the idea... The songs on here sound really well-written, too -- "Inside Out" is a sweet shoegazer-y pop song, while songs like "Heading For the Door" are more indie-rock than pop, and ones like "Docking the Pod" are entertaining little space-sound instrumentals thrown in for variety. Wouldn't it be nice if this was what outer space sounded like? (JH)
(Up Records -- P.O. Box 21328, Seattle, WA. 98111)