It starts with countdown to cacophony. A well-indicated pathway to absolute and total sensory overload. It’s calculated, clear and concise. The succinctly titled “Intro” hits like a sucker punch you never saw coming because it was never on the cards. The next thing that Sweden’s Echo Ladies presents is Kick-era INXS-level compression on “Almost Happy”, a track that answers the age-old question we’ve all struggled with – what would Peter Hook have sounded like with the Sisters of Mercy?
This debut from Matilda Bogren, Joar Andersén and Mattis Andersson is awash with distorted synths, digital drums and an absolute definition of sound that, ultimately, places them both at the centre of something but also with the smarts of someone at an emotional remove, both protagonist and onlooker, omniscient and omnipresent.
This is rare for an album that is so steeped in the teenage: a place where bedrooms and approximations of happiness abound; where judgment calls are easy, but real confidence is hard won. Everyone will see this as a shiny, shoegaze debut but, in truth, it’s a full-on Goth album and all the better for it.
Emotion runs thick through this collection, from the track titles “Apart”, “Almost Happy” “Hard Ending” and the high-watermark and obvious Jesus and Mary Chain nod of “Darklands”, to the highly strung (out) instrumentation. There are many touchstones here, some obvious, some less so. New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen and The Jesus and Mary Chain are all here in one way or another, but so too are the dance-led, minimalist soundscapes of KBV and the echoed fuzz of the criminally underrated Moose.
Pink Noise is music for clubs and bedrooms, for celebration and introspection; it’s music for boys and girls, for precocious teens and comfortably dumb parents. It’s the sound of radiant summers and bitter winters. Which is, of course, to say that it’s very, very good indeed.
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