This is the first EP from Brooklyn quintet Quiet Lights, it begins with pulsing bass and ambience on Throat Cut before soft female vocals creep in, it coasts along at a relaxed pace, evoking a gentle current though lyrically the repeated image is “Footsteps echo on the wooden boards”, but it’s all wrapped up in a subtle, shimmering quilt of sound. It’s a humble, knowing start to this record.
Engine Down has a similar feel, though the drums pound with head-nod-inducing regularity lurching the track into a more guitar-driven chorus the soft detached vocals lending it an early Yeah Yeah Yeahs edge. It comes, seemingly, to a close before breathy vocals waltz from ear to ear over slow, tentative guitars and a steady bass edging you onward. Simple Mechanics feels a little Sparklehorse-like to begin with, cute blips and blops dancing above the instrumentation, “It’s not easy, it’s not fair, it’s not that you don’t care” coos the whispery vocal, and there’s a strange chrome starkness to the track that recalls the recent soundtrack to Drive. It suddenly blossoms into a rather ethereal and uplifting burst of splashy drums and ascending guitars, whilst vocals become lost in the mix it’s a nice sudden leap into a great expanse, working all the better for the careful containment and fragility that the group’s music often possesses. It’s a shame that it chooses to fade out though!
The title track sort of gathers itself together, violin creaking over slightly out-of-step guitar and stammering bass, whilst the vocals are ghostly and doe-eyed. It never seems to coelesce into something particularly coherent, its ambition and ideas rub awkwardly against one another, creating a peculiar if underwhelming cocktail of sound. There’s a ‘bonus track’ included called Ablaze that has a crunchy, burbling bass line that sits nicely against the dry lightness of the vocal. Guitars swoop in like great mystical waves around the determined drumline before turning into optimistic little riffs on the chorus.
A pleasant little record that finds its groove and generally sticks to it.
[Rating:3]
