As the year has progressed, several
great singles and EPs have been released for which I have written reviews or
should have written reviews. I’ve waited
for many of these bands to go ahead and release new full length albums before
offering my thoughts, but several have not yet materialized. So, over the next week or two, I hope to
share my enthusiasm for some great singles that have come along during 2014
that I’ve neglected to share.
Secret Shine
“Each Time”
7”
(Dreams
Never End)
When bands
began reforming after several years away, there were always prominent cries of
“sellout” and a strange disdain cast upon them for giving their music another
go. What about bands that never really
drew a huge audience? What would be the
explanation for a band reforming and enduring another possible round of being
ignored, other than a pure love of the art?
Of course, there have been so many bands that have reformed over the
last fifteen years that it’s no longer even an issue, but what I find
surprising, is that there have been a handful of bands that have not only
recaptured their original spark, but surpassed it. For me, Secret
Shine is one of those bands.
Secret Shine
existed during the early 90s on the vaunted Sarah Records label, and I was familiar with them via the many
excellent label compilations that I devoured back then. Secret Shine was about as “shoegaze” as that
label ever got, and though they were intriguing to me, they never connected
enough to get me to pursue their records.
Yet, ever since their reformation back in 2006, they’ve been steadily
improving and a band that I look forward to hearing from and will make every
effort to secure their latest offerings.
Their last album, The Beginningand the End, brought an urgency and passion that they had never showed
before (and was my #5 pick for best album of the year!).
It’s been
some time since that great album, but while they commence work on a new album,
they have offered up a very nice single as a teaser. Luckily, this record is right on par with the
best of their most recent work. The
A-Side, “Each Time,” burns with desperation and that urgency that drove much of
their last LP. They get compared a lot
to Slowdive (also recently reformed)
with their airy atmospheric sound derived from buzzing feedback, but that band
never let loose with this kind of drive before - like having the beat go double
time during the exciting chorus.
Over on the
flip side, is the dreamier “Anything About Me,” a song that drifts along with a
beautiful quiet melancholy and a rumbling beat, which builds the tension
towards what looks like trouble ahead.
The feeling of being marginalized and taken for granted in a
relationship is explored in the sparest of words, but the simple repeated line
“You don’t know / you don’t know / you don’t know / anything about me” gives us
a strong clue as to what is happening.
If these two
songs are a sign of what’s to come, the next Secret Shine album will be an
incredible highlight of 2015.
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