LOOP

Sonancy (Cooking Vinyl)

Since the mid-1980s, Loop have been plotting a course across the spaces on the map between the droning fuzz and feedback of the Velvet Underground and the insistent motorik of Neu!. They split in 1991, just as this type of sound started paying dividends for My Bloody Valentine and the rest of the shoegaze crowd, before reforming in 2013.

On their second post-reformation release, Sonancy, they continue their explorations in a similar vein. Unfortunately, the lack of variety provides little for the listener to orient themselves by, and it ends up sounding like a set of demos for a much better album. Guitars fizz, effects-laden vocals emerge here and there, and drums pound, all in the correct ratios – but the overall sound is thin, too lacking in musical or dynamic contrasts, to conjure the cosmic grandeur for which the band are aiming. I suspect these songs sound much more impressive in a live setting; on record, though, it quickly becomes too much of the same.

words DAVID GRIFFITHS