Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Splendid End - Demonstration Suite

The Splendid End started back in 2010 when Guy Low and Amy Buchanan met and started trading ideas through GarageBand. It's now a full fledged band, with 5 total members. They released their debut, Demonstration Suite, earlier this year. The 13 songs are described by the band as fitting 2 different albums, which is just about perfect. The first songs from the album were recorded with the current full live band, while the last songs on the album are earlier recordings from before the band coalesced. 

The earlier tracks have a much more polished sound and fit in with their current Dresden Dolls without the gimmick meets Veruca Salt and that dog sound. The album opener, "Cabaret," reflects this by being a hard rock cabaret song. "Holkham Beach" is both epic and dreamy, mixing 60s pop with the drone of shoegaze and 90s power pop.

The later songs have some fantastic moments, too. "Add Alcohol" starts off as a fairly standard pop song but devolves into a noisy clusterfuck of the most epic proportions. "Dear Baby" is reminiscent of Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth.

To hear and purchase Demonstration Suite, check out The Splendid End's Bandcamp page. It looks like they might have the follow up out by the end of the year, so keep an eye out for that one. This is a definite band to keep your eye on.

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