weekly spotlight
Letters From Mars
Crash EP
From the fuzzy opening riff of “Crash Out”, the new EP from NC (or is it Mars?) based Letters From Mars is addictive, smile-inducing, groovy, fun, and powerful. There are flashes - wisps really - of a whole range of familiar influences in each of these songs.
This EP is remarkable for how efficiently it displays a range of stylistic sandboxes in which LFM is comfortable playing. And through it all, an undeniable personality and simplicity that ties this project together beautifully.
The track we hadn’t heard yet was “HEART BREAKER” which opens with a nasty, undeniably classic grunge feel and then slips effortlessly into something more dance-able, like Presidents of the United States of America remixed for a strip club. Throughout, it feels like something that was missing from the 90s landscape, irrepressibly part of that vibe but too stubborn to fit into any of the boxes on offer. This song just rocks.
Letters From Mars is, above all else, a hell of a fun listen, and not just because it’s the first time I’ve heard anyone use “dag-nabbit” in a lyric. There’s a character to the vocals that’s unique and endearing, both in the lyrical approach and the delivery, and every one of these songs is memorable and punchy enough to be the lead single on its own album. Terrific work from a really exciting new artist. start.
The Sleeping Cliffs
Decomposition
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of this EP from The Sleeping Cliffs, the absolutely stunning post-rock solo project of Virginia-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and all around virtuoso Todd Glidewell.
The catalog Glidewell has built in only three years is mind-boggling. There seems to be no end in sight, either, as Decomposition represents a gorgeous and expansive new document, both of Glidewell’s seemingly limitless talents and the artistic flexibility that his nom de plume offers.
This 5-song EP comes in at just under 14 minutes, and despite its digestible run-time it feels like it has the scope of a Russian novel.
So much of what The Sleeping Cliffs does serves as a meditation on the act of composition itself, the lack of lyrics diverting your attention more carefully to the decisions Glidewell is making, the roads not taken, the art of arrangement, the rise and fall of various elements in the mix.
Witness the way “Ox Bone” offers you a tour through the musical phrases that form its backbone, and then immediately starts deconstructing them.
You won’t find many offerings in the world of instrumental music that are as sonically overpowering, as intellectually stimulating, as demanding of proper attention paid, as The Sleeping Cliffs. And Decomposition is among the best work they’ve ever published.
Dim Dead Boy
Dawn on the Distant Moon
The ambition involved in a 6-song album with a run time of nearly an hour and 15 minutes, and “conceptualized as the ethereal dreams of a cosmonaut in suspended animation while he traverses interstellar space”, is a rare thing to find in the indie space.
Though sprinkled with keys and synths, for the most part the arrangements on this album are fairly sparse despite the grand and galactic feel of it all. The drums and bass are the constants, providing a coherent underpinning for a variety of sonic and melodic explorations on the guitar.
The drums are played, and spectacularly so, by Combover Beethoven’s own Unit, who’s becoming something of a session player fixture on the globalized Internet Indie scene. They’re delightfully atmospheric, thunderous at times, swimming in enough reverb to make them feel as though they’re echoing through the abyss.
It’s over this skeleton that guitarist and primary composer Brian Lynch stretches the meat of these creations - a range of guitar sounds and ideas, never particularly complex, but always patient, thoughtful, tasteful, and devastatingly effective.
There is a lot to love in this album - the staggering scope, the herculean patience, the self-control, the imagination, the atmosphere - and I don’t imagine any 2 listeners will come away with the same perspective on what it did best. For me, it’s a singular piece of work from a singular artist, a vision no one else could’ve realized, and one that’s immensely rewarding to anyone with the time and bandwidth to pay it the proper attention.