The Joke's On You

An album that’s sure to get lost amongst the excitement of yesterday’s highly anticipated release of Broken Social Scene’s Forgiveness Rock Record and the New Pornographers’ Together is the just as anticipated for ourselves release of the second full-length album, Aquatic, from Lancaster, PA’s Highspire. You’re probably not gonna read about this one on Pitchfork, no.

The band’s previous album, Your Everything, was not only one hell of a hot record that faithfully mined the swirling atmospheric rock of such dreampop/shoegaze bands like Ride and Swervedriver, but it also was one of our surprise favorites of 2003 that came out of nowhere. And while the new album shares the same qualities as its predecessor, many of the compositions contained within come off as being, dare I say, more lush and prettier in sound.

Highspire are still just as influenced by groups such as The Pale Saints and Chapterhouse as the previously blogged about The Sleepover Disaster. However, the latter tends to acknowledge their love of some of the more hard-hitting acts from the early 90s shoegazer scene while Highspire walks the more precarious line paved by groups such as My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive as does other current groups like Airiel and Pia Fraus; bands who didn’t, and don’t, make the distinction between melody and feedback quite so obvious.

That being said, Highspire still has a little bit of early Swervedriver in them but their rock is a lot more subtle than that Oxford, England powerhouse. That being said, I can’t see anyone who’s a fan of any of those aforementioned bands not liking this; one of the best dreampop/shoegaze influenced bands currently going.

RECOMMENDED!

Highspire – “Dusted” (mp3)

(from the Reverse Reverb CD, Aquatic, 2010)