Love and Regret - Cold Showers

Cold Showers is the debut album LA band 'Love & Regret' who formed around about 2 years ago & they combine pop music with traditional angular guitar riffs and shoegaze to create a sound that's heavy in atmosphere and heavy in hooks. On first listen it may seem that 'Cold Showers' and it's 8 songs sound a bit nondescript & for the most part this is kind of true, I could imagine any number of shoegaze influenced bands putting out this record & this would be a problem if some of the songs weren't so damn catchy. This album does one thing particularly well and that's throwing you some incredibly catchy and simple guitar riffs that feel immediate and garners your interest pretty quickly 'In Terms Of Pleasure' is a favourite of mine with it's bass line and indie pop guitar tone  and female/male vocal harmonies making up a very simple yet very strong chorus, & 'Seminary' is a pretty strong closer offering an increase in tempo and overall presence which works really well for this band. The one thing that can be laid against this album that whilst for the most part songs are very enjoyable the is nothing really to them that allows them to truly stand out from the crowd, whilst all the songs have their quirks which make them unique within the context of the album, they really do not stand out in an oversubscribed genre. I guess the best way to sum up this album would be 'good but unspectacular' & I don't mean that in a horrible way either. The just isn't enough in this album to make me get overly excited about it,  is a fairly accomplished debut with some very strongly crafted pop influenced shoegaze treats.  

Partially covers and partially original material the aptly named 'Electric Sound Of Summers' (I consider it a bit more analog myself with electronic elements) was apparently almost a decade in a making and featured esteemed guest musicians Stephen Lawrie of 'Telescopes' & Willie B. Carruthers  of 'Spiritualised' which is what makes it all the more surprising that, for the most part at least, this album really does nothing for me. The tone of this album is a very spaced out one, one that encourages you to shut your eyes in the midst of a hot summers day and to get lost in the music and whilst this works in some places such as the later half of 'Cheree' I just don't feel it working a great deal. It's the sort of album I would throw on in the background if I had it in a limited pile if it & were sunny out, but this one isn't likely to stick around in the memory banks very long & I would be hard pressed to really recommend it to anyone. It just lacks imagination and immersive qualities similar albums have & whilst I did kind of enjoy the cover of 'Some Things Last A Long Time' I'm not sure if the world is ready for yet another Daniel Johnston cover. The album is by no means bad just decisively 'okay'.