For those of you that have followed this blog since those long distance days of inception over three weeks ago, you will already know that I have a tendency to get all incandescent with rage about good jangle-pop being needlessly infused with all things echo, fuzz, reverb, fuss and shoegaze. Generally it tends to spoil what could have been beautiful.
However, Elna Rae seemed to have partially restored my faith in the usage of such nonsense and they certainly avoided overcooking the reverb like so many otherwise worthy jangle-pop bands tend to. In Dexter it is only added liberally to their their shimmering guitar work and the sort of dead pan languid vocals that will also appeal to the indie-pop crowd, in such a manner that it actually adds to the feeling of charismatic malaise that I get from the general sound. In this rare instance the reverb is nothing other than essential to the essence of a track such as the superbly crafted opener, Ultra Lord (see below). It is there, but unobtrusive.
The rest of the EP never threatens to teeter below anything other than beautiful and superbly crafted, even when the tempo is ramped up in Turkish Silvers and the reverb is also cranked up in the final track, Sonic.
I am looking forward immensely to the debut album and really hope that the amazing and extremely obvious promise of the finest Arizona has to offer is not blown away like so many other bands who drown so badly in their own sea of reverb that it actually sounds like they are performing underwater...Somehow I feel they will know their strengths by now though.
Artist Links / Details
Elna Rae are...
Naman Nanda -
Bass/Vox
Nitin Nanda -
Guitar
Omar Biebrich -
Guitar/Vox
Sam Diaz-Granados -
Drums
Bass/Vox
Nitin Nanda -
Guitar
Omar Biebrich -
Guitar/Vox
Sam Diaz-Granados -
Drums
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