Album Review: Whirr- Around EP
I first mentioned the band Whirr on the blog back at the start of the year, when their 2 X 7” with the now mostly defunct Portland-based
band Anne, finally saw physical release. Continuing on with what you could say
is a “victory lap” of sorts, Whirr have taken the momentum from their debut
full length, last year’s Pipe Dreams,
the aforementioned 7”, as well as the reissue of their debut (cassette) EP Distressor, and they’ve driven it all
into a new 4 song EP, Around.
While Pipe Dreams
saw the band dodging some of its self-indulgent characteristics, Around is a return to form of the two
tracks they contributed on their aforementioned 7”—long, noisy, slow songs.
None of those are bad things. I’m just saying that’s what you are in store for
if you listen to this. The refreshing thing about Pipe Dreams as well as Distressor,
was that there was time for Whirr to change it up a little as far as tempos,
atmosphere, etc. The draw back to Around is
that across the four songs, it all starts sounds a little samey. Three of the
four songs for sure follow a very similar structure and have a feeling—only the
second track, “Swoon,” picks things up a little in comparison to the other
songs that plod along in a slow motion swan dive.
Now that’s not to say that this is a bad EP. It’s not.
Whirr, when they want, can be quite gorgeous—even at its hardest and loudest moments,
“Keep,” is full of beautiful, cascading, shoegaze glorly. The vocal interplay
between Nick Bassett and Alexandra Morte, with their vocals buried deep within
the mix, recalls the quintessential shoegaze vocal stylings of Belinda Butcher and
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, but is never derivative.
Whirr have always had a “big” sound, even on their earliest
material. With Around, the size of
that sound continues to grow. Sure, it takes six people to make all this
happen. But each song is just vast and open, filling any space it happens to be
in. The reverb on the drums is just right, and I’m guessing at least three
people here are playing the guitar—and for the most part you can distinguish
that. These tones are set early on with the expansive opening track, “Drain,”
and continue throughout each song on the EP.
It’s safe to say, I think, that the new generation shoegaze
bands are an acquired taste. The cinematic scope that Whirr bring to the table
is unique, and sets them apart from every other band of twenty-somethings that
own a reverb pedal and a copy of Loveless. Many new, young bands that are flying below
the radar often put forth a lot of effort into one release, and then they fade
away. Whirr has proven they have a rather prolific worth ethic with the amount
of material they are generating. Around
is another step forward for a band that is just starting to develop.
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