Shoegaze Tuesday EP Roundup: Brief Candles- Newhouse and Modern Charms- S/T

After waiting five years between their second and third LP, Milwaukee’s Brief Candles have blessed us all with a new five song EP, two years after their most excellent 2011 release, Fractured Days. Combining the dreamier and noisier aspects of shoegaze with the flat out brashness of post-punk, the husband/wife co-fronted group continues to build on their ever expanding sound with the Newhouse EP.

Over the course of the five tracks here, one of the things that become obvious is that the band’s rhythm section set them apart from the ever-growing crop of “nu-gaze” outfits. Typically the bass is almost non-existent in a shoegaze band, but in Brief Candles, the low end is fuzzed out and right up there along with everything else, including very raw and live sounding drumming that keeps the momentum in each track moving along.

Building up to a cacophonic explosion is something the band has mastered over the course of the last few years—“Small Streets” from Fractured Days gets pretty real within its final few minutes. No time is wasted on Newhouse. The opening track (and hilariously titled) “Olympic Sleeper” careens into dissonance and angry feedback a little past the halfway point.

Co-frontpeople/guitarists Kevin Dixon and his boo Jenifer Boniger Dixon trade off lead vocal duties between songs, creating a bit of a Kevin Shields/Belinda Butcher vibe vocally—although while slightly pushed down in the mix, their voices are exponentially less ethereal and mysterious, making it relatively easy to comprehend that these are songs with lyrics.

The highpoint is the title track—also serving as the final moments of the EP. The press release for Newhouse mentions that the name serves as a memorial to a friend of that passed away. This alone adds an extra layer of emotion onto the track, but there’s already something incredibly somber about Boniger Dixon’s vocals, and the frantic guitar strumming create a real sense of urgency.

The songs on Newhouse walk an interesting line between the kind of music you want to close your eyes and dreamily sway your head back and forth, or do something that stops short of “headbanging”—let’s call it adamantly nodding in agreement with the music. At times, you could probably do both. Newhouse’s fatal flaw is that as an EP, it’s just entirely too short, but it serves as an excellent reminder, in case anyone was foolish enough to forget, that Brief Candles are an amazing and dynamic group.

Combining modern take on shoegaze—similar to other upstart ‘gazers like Young Prisms, but recalling the classic 80s and 90s traditional elements with lead singer Inna Kurikova’s innocent, wistful voice floating above everything else, Modern Charms’ self-titled debut EP balances a dreamy haze and crunchy guitars to create a very lush, rather beautiful sound.

Hailing from San Francisco, this six-song EP has been a long time in the making—the songs have been finished since the start of 2012, and are now just seeing the light of day via Clue #2 and Kram.

Structurally, the EP is front loaded with songs that are just a little bit harder, before scaling back and chilling out. The only misstep is near the middle, with “Epsilon.” Including some accessory percussion, it gets a little jammy, attempting to veer into a loose psychedelic feeling. It’s not a bad song, but when compared to the songs that come before it and after it, it seems a tad out of place.

Occasionally borrowing from Mazzy Star’s playbook on slower songs like “Ancient Cities,” and rocking in slow motion like any good shoegaze band should on “Falling Sun,” and “Silver Lanterns,” the effort’s closing track, has a near-perfect autumn vibe. Which is great, seeing as how it’s October now. Modern Charms is brief, yet beautiful, and it’s an excellent introduction to a young, new band.

Brief Candles' Newhouse EP is available now on vinyl and c.d. via Guilt Ridden Pop.
Modern Charms' self-titled EP is available on cassette via Kram, and on vinyl via Clue #2.