Kindling: Galaxies

Artist: Kindling
Title: Galaxies
Format Reviewed: MP3
Format Released: 6th November 2015
Reviewed By: Ben Chapman

Galaxies, a happily accidental EP from a band built after an intendedly one-off collaboration, is another promising exercise in the shoegaze revival. Massachusetts four-piece Kindling (including singer Stephen Pierce and drummer Andy Skelly of uncompromisingly intense punk launchers Ampere) display their capacity to lay back in comparison to their previous collaborations.

Blinding Wave paints out the EP's authentically shoegaze setting with its melodic but warped heaviness, where Gretchen William's icy vocal, a little reminiscent of The United States of America's psychedelic-prog leading lady, grabs the listener's attention, while the subdued yet energetic indie feel makes this opener very Menace Beach fan friendly. The bass hops along beside the vocal's melody nicely, but the sound is so large and fuzzy that you can't always tell how busily it joins in here. The constant fuzzy overdrive is only slightly smoothed with a piercing post-rock edge to a loftily-resting guitar line.

Second track While Away has the slower feel of My Bloody Valentine (and some particular hints of Come In Alone's intro). With its sizeable sound on entry, it's a fine display of the band's ability to bring variety to a genre that's heavy on crushing repetition and almost intangible levels of distortion. The dissonance of the main riffs combined with the honestly messy recording style gives a double layer of fuzziness, impressively never smothering the groove entirely. The dual vocals layer constantly, with hordes of pretty ghostly wailings and unintelligible lyrics that rely far more on melody than a need to be understood.

The melodically-focused Painkiller continues the furry trip begun on the previous two tracks, then opts to pick up tempo towards the end. A steady, warming, thrashing mess around in which the lyrics can't quite be made clear...but then where's the need for that anyway? No room for thematic preaching here, just sit and roll your head in the candyfloss bowl of shamelessly distorted guitar.

The all-too brief but monumentally overdubbed Coastal provides some Sunny Day Real Estate-style drum fills that alter and lead the song's energy dramatically, stabbed out alongside that ever swashing guitar, adding some welcome variation from the constant roll of strumming and foamy distortion. Whilst an effective grab for their massive sound, I think that throughout the EP it would have been nice to have heard the bass and guitars avoid working so steadily in tandem. This closing track proves they can avoid tailing each other, with a fair amount of twists presented in this final minute-and-a-half to close the album decisively.

At times the listener might find the end results too washy, with its steadily mindless waves of distortion and often incomprehensible lyrics muttered out melodically, but mostly it's a highly welcome addition for fans of shoegaze, indie, and generally subdued alt-rock, boldly presented in a convincing and unpretentiously concise EP.