Bands dabbling in the shoegaze genre get a lot of flack. It is, after all, remarkably easy to do the thing poorly. And there are loads of acts failing at trying to recapture the magic of groups from the form's heyday some two or so decades ago. That said, when it's done properly, one is reminded what a remarkably resilient style shoegaze can be. And that having been said, Seablite are doing it extremely right.
The San Francisco-based four-piece is poised to drop their debut full-length release on Emotional Response this Friday, and the record is fantastic. Grass Stains and Novocaine is this century's Spooky, and the sort of offering that reminds even jaded old fans like me why I first fell in love with shoegaze as a style nearly 30 years ago.
"Won't You" is all chiming goodness, think Lush (again) circa 1991, while the peppy "Pillbox" is even better, flashes of Shop Assistants and Black Tambourine popping up here. Elsewhere, "House of Papercuts" seems to be a sonic nod in the direction of current band Papercuts in terms of style and, perhaps, song title, while the superb "Heart Mountain" sees the band combine the sort of vocals that propelled compositions by Miki and Emma way back when, even as the jangling hook veers nearly into the territory mapped out expertly by Johnny Marr even earlier. It's a fantastic track and the sort of thing here on Grass Stains and Novocaine that provides proof of why this band is so much better than the sum of their influences.
The players here in Seablite -- Lauren Matsui (vocals and guitar), Andy Pastalaniec (drums), Galine Tumasyan (bass and vocals), and Jen Mundy (guitar) -- are young but they are wonderfully adept at crafting concise, crystalline pop of the sort that should earn this band favorable comparisons to not only Lush, but also Velocity Girl and early Creation Records acts like Ride (peep "There Were Only Shadows"). Every tune on this debut is a winner, and I am not ashamed to gush about this one a little since so many bands try to do this sort of thing and fail. I mean, given that, it only seems fitting to rave about how about good Seablite are here.
Grass Stains and Novocaine is out on Friday via Emotional Response.
More details on Seablite via the band's official Facebook page, or their official website.
[Photo: Michael Aguilar]