Spring Break
Band's Debut Album 'Charms' Listeners
CD Review
Kaylah Baca
Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: Focus
New-age is the first description that comes to mind when listening to the Charmparticles' debut album, "Alive in the Hot Spell," although shoegazing, dream pop, and/or space rock are more accurate genres to stick this band's music in.
Though it is not a commonly-known genre of alternative rock in the U.S., shoegazing was popular in the U.K. in the late 1980s. It is called shoegazing because musicians in these bands would often look down at their feet on the effects pedal as they stared off into space in deep thought. This style of music is related to dream pop, a more ambient and abstract version of folk and pop music. The Charmparticles are attempting to bring shoegazing/dream pop back into style and to here in the U.S.
The three-member band hails from Portland, Ore., and they have been playing together since 2004. Originally a quartet, singer Pamela Rooney, guitarist Sarah FitzGerald and drummer Nathaniel Merrill have had to re-evaluate their music by starting from scratch in the process of losing the founding member.
Even though "Alive in the Hot Spell" is the band's first full-length album, the Charmparticles had a successful EP entitled "Sit Down for Staying" back in 2004. In spite of their previous stellar EP, FitzGerald herself said that, "We're now in a place to realize any musical ambitions we want to realize. We are liberated from the band we once were - not just from what people expected of us, but what we expected from ourselves."
Released by Terrestrial Records, the Charmparticles' music is best described as introspective and moody. The tracks are full of distortion off the guitars and the fluctuating vocals of Rooney, however subdued in volume, are moving and emotional. Walls of sound come at the listener yet the melodies are never too muddied. Even though the Charmparticles are labeled as a pop rock band, their sounds are anything but the cliché pop songs you would hear on the radio.
Haunting melodies that echo are layered over by picks on the guitar that can sometimes be repetitive. There are countless times the effects pedal is used, just as the amount of keyboard effects used is innumerable. Added into the cocktail that is the Charmparticles music are violins, shakers and sleigh bells. At least the drumming is all real and Merrill does a decent job keeping it simple yet varied.
The tracks themselves can mesh together and a few even sound exactly the same in the beginning. The song "Gold Plated Shot" stands out in the album despite the track having a boring first 20 seconds that tempts any listener to skip it altogether. The rest of the album, especially the songs "The Magnificent Sky, I Leave and Am High" and "Rarest Numbers" can be expressed exactly as dream-like. The opening track of the CD, "Black Braid," hardly sounds like any of the middle songs and can deter new listeners to this type of music.
If the Charmparticles is appealing or the genre of shoegazing in general is interesting, then bands like My Bloody Valentine, Lush and Slowdive will definitely be others to check out as well.
Contact Kaylah Baca at
Kaylah.Baca@UConn.edu.
Though it is not a commonly-known genre of alternative rock in the U.S., shoegazing was popular in the U.K. in the late 1980s. It is called shoegazing because musicians in these bands would often look down at their feet on the effects pedal as they stared off into space in deep thought. This style of music is related to dream pop, a more ambient and abstract version of folk and pop music. The Charmparticles are attempting to bring shoegazing/dream pop back into style and to here in the U.S.
The three-member band hails from Portland, Ore., and they have been playing together since 2004. Originally a quartet, singer Pamela Rooney, guitarist Sarah FitzGerald and drummer Nathaniel Merrill have had to re-evaluate their music by starting from scratch in the process of losing the founding member.
Even though "Alive in the Hot Spell" is the band's first full-length album, the Charmparticles had a successful EP entitled "Sit Down for Staying" back in 2004. In spite of their previous stellar EP, FitzGerald herself said that, "We're now in a place to realize any musical ambitions we want to realize. We are liberated from the band we once were - not just from what people expected of us, but what we expected from ourselves."
Released by Terrestrial Records, the Charmparticles' music is best described as introspective and moody. The tracks are full of distortion off the guitars and the fluctuating vocals of Rooney, however subdued in volume, are moving and emotional. Walls of sound come at the listener yet the melodies are never too muddied. Even though the Charmparticles are labeled as a pop rock band, their sounds are anything but the cliché pop songs you would hear on the radio.
Haunting melodies that echo are layered over by picks on the guitar that can sometimes be repetitive. There are countless times the effects pedal is used, just as the amount of keyboard effects used is innumerable. Added into the cocktail that is the Charmparticles music are violins, shakers and sleigh bells. At least the drumming is all real and Merrill does a decent job keeping it simple yet varied.
The tracks themselves can mesh together and a few even sound exactly the same in the beginning. The song "Gold Plated Shot" stands out in the album despite the track having a boring first 20 seconds that tempts any listener to skip it altogether. The rest of the album, especially the songs "The Magnificent Sky, I Leave and Am High" and "Rarest Numbers" can be expressed exactly as dream-like. The opening track of the CD, "Black Braid," hardly sounds like any of the middle songs and can deter new listeners to this type of music.
If the Charmparticles is appealing or the genre of shoegazing in general is interesting, then bands like My Bloody Valentine, Lush and Slowdive will definitely be others to check out as well.
Contact Kaylah Baca at
Kaylah.Baca@UConn.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Sean
posted 10/24/07 @ 6:28 PM EST
Fans of shoegaze should also check out Jesu, a project of music visionary Justin Broadrick which incorporates some edgier rock elements into their sound, as well as ambient electronica. (Continued…)
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