Xuvetyn by lovesliescrushing (Review)

This album shows why lovesliescrushing are at the head of the beautiful noise scene.
Xuvetyn, lovesliescrushing

Lovesliescrushing occupies that musical terrain that combines the like of My Bloody Valentine, Seefeel, the Cocteau Twins, and other dreampop/beautiful noise artists. On first listen, Xuvetyn is noisy, loud, and chaotic. However, when you listen to it more, the melodies and the songs rise to the surface.

Because of their sound, lovesliescrushing may seem a little bit at odds with the rest of the Projekt stable. They’re not gothic or darkwave, and they’re not really melancholy or introspective, something most other Projekt artists have in spades. But that doesn’t mean they make dull, uninspired music. Personally, I’ve found that in some ways, lovesliescrushing is one of the more complicated and challenging Projekt bands, simply because of their sound and experimentation.

Noise and feedback slide into eachother, are changed, and fill the room. Gorgeous veils of gossamer sound just seem to hover in front of you, with the most extreme noises filtering in at the edge. On “Staticburst”, I’m reminded of that scene in Jean Cocteau’s Orphee, when Orphee is seated in the car, picking up the ghostly transmissions; feedback and noise sound like the radio transmissions of ghosts, trying to break through to this world.

“Silver (Fairy-Threaded)” is a beautiful slow piece, that gently evolves from sparse chords to more of Loveliescrushing’s noise. I like this track quite a bit because we can actually hear Melissa’s vocals. Like most other dreampop/beautiful noise bands, the vocals are usually buried low in the mix, treated simply as another instrument. In lovesliescrushing’s case, that might be a mistake. The vocalist has a gorgeous, child-like voice, reminiscent of Seefeel’s Sarah Peacock.

Lovesliescrushing utilizes an amazing sound palette that runs the gamut from all-out wall of noise blitzkriegs to the soft tinkling sounds of individual strings, to fret buzz and God knows what else. Their ability to push any sound to the max and still write cohesive songs is probably the most fascinating thing about them. And that fact is even more amazing when you consider that all of this is done with guitars; no drums, no bass, no keyboards, nothing. Just experimentation with a guitar and voice. However, lovesliescrushing uses these two instruments to get an extremely full and lush sound, much more so than you would think.

In all aspects, Xuvetyn is much, much better than Loveliescrushing’s Projekt debut, Bloweyelashwish. The sound is much more professional and solid. At times, Bloweyelashwish seemed a little too pretentious, like they were trying to hard. On Xuvetyn, they’ve produced a much fuller, and much more interesting album. At almost 70 minutes, the album is a bit much to take in, and the tracks seem to eventually bleed into eachother.

It’ll be interesting to see how lovesliescrushing will further develop this sound. At times, I feel like the music they make doesn’t leave much room for evolution. It could be possible for lovesliescrushing to find themselves making this same kind of music with each release, and grow stagnant. With their next release, they’ll either top Xuvetyn(which would be one heck of a feat), or they’ll release an album that falls down with the rest of the “ethereal noise with female vocals” bands. Only time will tell, but for now, this album shows why lovesliescrushing are at the head of the beautiful noise scene.

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