The spaces in between have a duplicity, they can surge momentum or deliver dream crushing confusion. When people talk about doing something new, changing their lives, or even their wardrobe, a sickening doubt always hangs in the air. Is it worth risking everything you’ve ever known and distrusted to give into the lustful motion of endless nights of pleasure and complete intoxication of all senses? Music has a way of guiding waves into the unknown through haunting melody, self-reflecting rhythms, and the masochistic strumming of road weary chords.
I used to think nostalgia was deadly. It can sting if you don’t bring the ghost into the present to see what captured your intellect and sex drive in the first place. Sometimes looking into the looking glass reveals the disappointing over exaggerations of our imagination or an opportunity to resume unfinished business. Stay in the sludge of complacency or drift and drift into the night with an insatiable appetite for unsolicited purity. The kind of pure that purrs with bite marks and bruises to remind you of how not invisible you really are.
Within the collection known as “Up at Lagrange” by Hobbes Fanclub, the reverberations of these feelings are breathing in distorted waves. Twisting and turning with seductive reverb and lucid solos that scream with Velvet Underground balladry, the empty spaces pop and spark with sugar coated heaviness that relies on nuance and power equally. This sequencing of airy vocals, sweet scattered guitars, and a pulsing bottom section grinds the shoegaze genre with a flirtatious bite of early 80s post-punk. A silver-tongued cocktail brimming with enough emotional turmoil and indifference to keep you awake all night but never promises you the memory of what you’re about to experience.
A dreamlike tornado of “Pleased to Meet Me” Replacements twists into a decadent pose with Galaxie 500 and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Tracks such as “Into the Night” and “Outside Myself” highlight what this band is capable of while providing an album that’s in perfect balance with itself. Standout tracks include the hypnotic “Stay Gold” and the feverish “Up at Lagrange”. This is definitely a band I will keep an eye on and one that keeps it hot coolness with each repeated listen.
-Kevin McGovern
FEAR AND LOATHING LB OFFICAL SITE
HOBBES FANCLUB
