If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Rob Butterfield The latest from Lightning War is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. "Different War" could have easily been a lovely little folk song, and it would have been a terrific one. But instead Lightning Dust have this tension in the music that is sure to drag the anxiety out in the listener. The tension in the song just builds and builds between Amber Webber's quietly intense vocals and the music that starts off sparsely and builds in orchestration as the song goes on. Towards the end, the song has gone from a quiet folk song to an indie rock epic without you even noticing.  Some of the tension of the song undoubtedly comes from the romantic split between the duo. Amber Webber says of the song: “I wrote this song knowing love had died despite our best efforts to revive it. It’s a song about defeat, surrender and acceptance, comparing love to war. Josh ran with this feeling and created an atmosphere of plodding tension, slowly building to an epic orchest...

A kind of slow week for new releases. Apparently, the heat of the summer means everyone's too busy listening to "Get Lucky" on the beach as opposed to listening to good new music. Anyway, a handful of new releases that might have hit your radar: Smith Westerns - Soft Will : Smith Westerns were compared to Belle and Sebastian once upon a time, and while I love me some Belle and Sebastian, they've never grabbed me that way at all. While their third album is definitely the most cohesive one they've put out so far, they still come across as the sort of late-1990s/early 2000s indie pop retread that never really catches me these days. I know a lot of people tend to love this band in indie circles, and this will probably grab them some more fans, but unless you're already a fan of theirs or this style, it might not be totally worth your time. Lightning Dust - Fantasy : Another third album, this time from the electro side project of Black Mountain. The album ...