Gowns - Red State [Cardboard Records - 2007]Red State is a wonderfully bedraggled and apocalyptic lo-fi take on indie rock cum folk with electrnocia elements and pop smears. I't's bleak with drugged out overtones and avant garde twists, noisy discharges, hazy barren viola cinematics. This music hums of road trips where night and day merge into one another, been so spaced out that your unsure weather your awake or a sleep, or been coldly wide awake shivreing in early morning comes downs dripping with ice cold rain. It’s expansive but at the same time very clastrobic, the tones fogging your space like condensation covered filthy car wind screens. We have a mix of drug hazed and poignant female and male vocals, coming off sometimes like the black fucked up off spring of the Pixes, or at other times like suicidal love child folk punk, lined with lush abused strings. They also use effects peddles and repetition on the vocals in a very grimy and quirky manner adding another diffent edge to thier own distinctive sound. Their vocals detail very wordy lyrics and dialogue that sounds like a cross between drug hazed memoirs, nightmares and small town longing and loss. A mess up and twisted, original dusty jewel of a record, which managed to be memorable, psychedelic and darkly charming. A ramshackle master piece that is bound to sit somewhere or another in all it’s hunched glory on my end of year list. Roger Batty
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