Swansea’s White Noise Sound are not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves. And most of them are gloomy.
The Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Spiritualized, Suicide, and even in the melodically sleazy Blood, The Dandy Warhols – the scuzzy shoegazing grit runs through them like sugary words through smack-addled Brighton rock.
The good news is that what they lack in any sense of originality, they more than make up for in dirty-fingernailed authenticity, their self-titled debut awash with whispered, blissed-out, druggy vocals and vast swathes of howling feedback and directionless chiming riffs. Whatever time of day you put it on, you’ll feel that fuzzy sense of unreality that comes at three o’clock in the morning after one too many beers. Or something. Reality becomes as distorted as the sounds they’re making.
If we really have to have an 80s revival, we’re better off with this kind of anti-social but weirdly beautiful cacophony than anything else that the decade had to offer.
