Curtain Call Reviews: Lovelust

Lovelust are a difficult band to describe and are certainly hard to pigeon-hole with genres as they fuse together elements of psychedelica, drone, shoegaze and at times quite dark electronic overtones. The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine are obvious influences but this record, like their live performances, really is a mixed bag.

As the warped vocals kick in on opening track 'Love' it's easy to see you're in for a trip. But soon warm organs and psychedelic droney guitars begin to wash over you, slowly building, like an ocean slowly taking over a beach. There is undoubtedly beauty behind the smoke. 'Frequency' seems to start off as relatively easy going but soon builds into a dark wall of static that almost seems to test the audiences patience and ability to withstand the din, before calming into ambient waves of synthesizers which gently float and spin, to help recover from the wall of noise moments earlier. 'Sun Don't Reach Your Face' starts off somewhere between a 60's daydream and a 90's hangover, gentle rythm guitar parts give way to metalic electric guitar and warm, reverberating vocals, at once sounding like The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Warlocks, before distant drums enter and really bring the song together, certainly this is my personal favourite track on the record. The first few minutes of 'Trip' give you exactly what it says on the tin, before giving way to Pink Floyd-esque guitar parts and even more reverberating vocal parts and samples of people talking and a crescendo of sound. The self-recorded EP ends with 'Love On The Higher Planes' a groove based piece of psychedelica that, as with the whole record, is pretty difficult to explain. Put simply it's really quite lovely. It temporarily transports you to another plane and if you can slow your brain down long enough to just live between the bars it's a wondefully calming and rewarding end to a charming record.

They're never going to be to everyone's taste, and will certainly never be massively commercial, but you'd imagine both those statements would be pleasing to a band who sounds and plays like this. At times the production is a little confused and as with all music that can loosely be labelled as drone, all the elements are 'in the mix' together so sometimes ideas get a litltle lost. But there is no question that beneath, and within, the samples, the sharp and dark noises, the testing synthesisers and at times incomprehensible lyrics, there is something very beautiful indeed, something unique and something special.