White Noise Sound :: s/t

There’s no question Wales’ White Noise Sound keep one eye on the past with their blissed out pulse, but they also keep both hands on it and drag it into the now for a 21st century debut that arrives fully baked out of the oven. Where many would have looked back and taken all that rich history {Velvets, MBV, Spacemen 3} and seen it as the destination, White Noise Sound took it as only a starting point. More re-invention and re-interpretation than revivalist, WNS deftly side-steps the pigeon-hole trap and drop some sounds that are, for all the nods to the past, timeless.

It’s not another retro-rehash that, like the shoegaze it celebrates and champions much of the time, um, celebrated … itself … or was accused of …

That’s not linear thinking, but neither is this record. The shortest distance from one point to another is a straight line. We’re told. How boring …

Each side’s lead off track {Sunset and Blood} pump out of the gate at full speed smacking you up side the head with a visceral punch and roar rich in sonics and chug. You can digest it on a surface level for that immediate sugar rush or really dig in to find that that beautiful wall of sound is not as impenetrable as it seems. They don’t set the stage for a relentless onslaught of trying to up the ante as you might expect. Bypassing the straight line, WNS open up and take psych flight for the remainder of the respective sides … Is It There For You? builds to a restrained and thoughtful pinnacle close before the dronish minimal Fire in the Sea opens up into the wash of There Is No Tomorrow. Side 2 follows the same tact after Blood with Blood {Reprise} leading the way into another side of pulsing euphoria closing with the just-indulgent-enough {In Both} Dreams and Ecstasies.

Seeing Pete Kember {Spacemen 3/Spectrum} and Cian Ciaran’s {Super Furry Animals} names in the ‘thank yous’ comes as no surprise. The pedigree of those two provide a quick summation of where White Noise Sound are coming from. And show why they aren’t content with just recycling and updating what came before them. Both Kember and Ciaran come from outfits that aren’t content with hitting a target, then aiming for it over and over again. They push and pull all the ingredients they look to until they are stretched to their apparent breaking points and become increasingly malleable in their hands. White Noise Sound think the same way and what you end up with is challenging and bracing, just as it is thoughtful and, at times, melancholic. It’s whip-smart experimental pop squall that transcends itself and genres to raise the bar for themselves and any outfit that proclaims itself indebted to the pioneers.

It’s not a matter of being equal parts psych bombast and bliss tinged euphoria, or one ear tuned to the past and one to the future. That’s as boring as a straight line and wouldn’t have made White Noise Sound such a fantastically rich record that can feverishly burn and gently dissipate far beyond its own apparent fringe … or fringes … Another highly recommended gem from Alive Records.

:: White Noise Sound