Inside Your Guitar
It Hugs Back
Score:50
Reviewer: Ed Butler
Label: 4AD (USA & UK), Remote Control (Australia)
Reviewed: Sep 7th '09, Released:2009
That score up there says it all. It’s 50%. Half. A bare pass. There’s nothing particularly bad about it, just nothing that particularly stands out either. The UK quartet’s particularly bland brand of shoegaze-y dream pop revolves around a warm (not hot, or cold), soothing aesthetic – shifting from sleepy lullaby to upbeat adult contemporary.
Even the upbeat numbers, though, are suspiciously sedate affairs, while slower tracks verge on the somnambulant. Opener ‘Q’ is a slothful keyboard-driven number reminiscent of Beach House’s effort of last year. However, unlike Beach House, who have the asset of a unique, emotive singer in Victoria Legrand, It Hugs Back has Matt Simms, whose breathy mumblings manage to rob much of Inside Your Guitar’s highpoints of their heft.
And herein lies the crux of the problem. In a nutshell, the slow songs are boring, while the quicker ones have the potential to engage, but are held back by a singer following the well-worn path of low-key vocalists.
Dream pop is a troubled mistress. While it can sometimes produce compelling results it can also all too easily go wrong. No doubt Simms’ singing style is at least partially affected, in the mould of Bradford Cox – despite Deerhunter sitting at the harder end of the dream-pop/dream-rock shoegaze spectrum – and had he injected some more verve into his words, Inside Your Guitar could well have been a more engaging experience. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and it isn’t. It’s just OK.
