As The Telescopes have continued to put out new music, I've become more and more convinced that the band's one of the great underrated acts of the shoegaze boom. Of course, Stephen Lawrie started making music long before anyone came up with that term, but as his band found some fame in those first few years of that scene, he became more and more associated with that style. And while Songs of Love and Revolution, the newest Telescopes album out today via Tapete is full of feedback, it's full of so much more than just that.
"This is Not a Dream" opens things like an outtake from a Merzbow session, all warped sounds heard through a broken speaker, while "Strange Waves" takes that dissolute vibe and adds throbbing bass to it. While so much of Songs of Love and Revolution doesn't seem nearly as loud as we usually expect from shoegaze, Lawrie reminds again how much can be done with less. Noisy but not overbearing, the best tracks here, like the lanky "Come Bring Your Love" and the faux-blues-y "This Train", marry a quiet, submerged intensity with something that's gloriously disheveled.
While so many bands in this genre are simply content to let their sound be determined by what effects pedals they can afford, Lawrie, again and consistently, pulls back, and in doing so, retains a mystery that others lack. "You're Never Alone with Despair" is, as a composition, barely there, but it's a minimalist masterpiece here, a faint suggestion of coiled power purring through the whole track. I remain more and more impressed by the subtlety Stephen Lawrie is intent on bringing to a form famous for its feedback. By pulling back, undoing things, letting things fall apart, Lawrie's music, especially here on Songs of Love and Revolution, remains something that defies all of our expectations of shoegaze, while re-affirming the original woozy appeal that drew us to this style so many decades ago.
Songs of Love and Revolution is out now via Tapete.
More details via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Tapete]