This mini album by Nova Scotia duo Heaven For Real makes me feel like I’ve drunk too much coffee; I love coffee. I love this! Even though my heart is now beating erratically…
Following odd, ambient, orientalist mini-instrumental prelude, Theme From a Logo (complete with the sounds of a slyly roaring fire), things really hit go on Oh No where drums (courtesy of Jonathan Pappo) and jangling guitars dance in the most hyperactive of patterns – a caffeine hit of bubble-gum blasted, art-rock mathematics – but there’s soul hear too, particularly in that delightfully squawking yelp of a vocal. The song ends abruptly, the power apparently cutting out (a theme across this mini album) – as if the rest of the song had been played at double speed to catch it before it all went dark. Self-recorded and produced in a solar battery and wood stove-powered Toronto studio- it’s no surprise this feels like a well stoked fire- but also an album filled with light.
The adrenaline has begun to slow a little by the time indie slacker gem Platforms kicks in – it’s a glorious number – a sort of stoned reimagining of Byrdsian pop – where rhythms shift and a gloriously jangling fizz is captured. Wichita’s allows those beautifully natural guitars to take on smooth rolls of soulful shapes – frothed up further by a burring hum of synth that sounds, probably deliberately, like a steam-punk computer running out of steam. There’s something almost funk inflected about the rhythms – but the vocals here are at their most intimate and vulnerable. It’s a lovely and emotionally charged juxtaposition.
I love the way these songs keep shifting identity – moving from strange distorted jangle to jagged mania with sprightly immediacy- where notes bend unexpectedly or take entirely surprising sonic routes. For something clearly trying to capture a moment – they’re also full of glorious little details, as well as an abiding love of pop song craft itself, where, despite the artful complications of their composition and production, melodies still stick like bubble gum under the classroom desks.
Lyrically these songs are another brain melting collision of imagery – a vibrating collage of fractured moments; it’s hard to know what is happening at times but it doesn’t it make it any less potent- none more so than with the broken accordion accompanied coda of Biting Down With The Fangs, a song tackling feelings of acute grief, where things take on an understandably more visceral emotive resonance. This is often bright-eyed music but it’s not shying away from darker themes and existential doubts. It’s an album where contrast and closeness are key – where songs feel primed to skitter into uncharted territories whilst playing with the sounds of the past. That slacker reimagining of sixties tropes reaches a height on All That Remains – with its Dusk At Cubist Castle echoing psyche-pop stew – a fitting conclusion to an erratic mind-melt of a mini album, before the bleeping end signal of the epilogue fades.
Mark and J. Scott Grundy have captured something wonderful here – a sort of complex spontaneity, that toys with the senses and leaves you wanting more. Time for another coffee. Time to press play again.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
Music | Misophone (bandcamp.com)
