Love Songs, the new EP from Dublin-based shoegaze/pop act Left Iris, dances a few very interesting lines. There’s the sort of shoegazy vibes-over-anything piece, there’s the usual flirtation with the 80s sound that we expect from modern synth music, and there’s even a bit of, uh, Mario Kart?
Fans of Tame Impala, The Midnight, and later records from The Head and the Heart will love this new record. Though unlike those other acts, the vocal production in Left Iris is considerably more bare bones than you’d expect from the genre tags.
The guitar/synth/drum work is all drenched, effect-wise. The vocals, by contrast, are almost dry, sort of in the vein of slacker rock a la Weezer or Pinegrove. It’s an interesting choice, one that occasionally works to great effect and one that might work against a few of the songs here.
Love Songs, the title track, embodies the album really well. Music to drive to, chorused out synth lines, and the shared vocals. Generally, when you have more than one “lead” vocalist, you have either the Civil Wars style back-and-forth, or the you-lead-a-song-I-lead-this-song you’d get from bands like the Avett Brothers or The Head and the Heart—but Left Iris genuinely shares the vocals on most of these tracks, where muting one of the performances would fundamentally alter the sound in a real way, even when they’re doing the back-and-forth thing. This approach is probably the most unique thing on the record, and I look forward to how that plays out with their work in the future.
“Georgia”, a song with plenty of competition in terms of shared title, is probably the most energetic song on Love Songs and is also the track that made me decide to write this review. This is easily my favorite song on the album, a level of energy that goes beyond what’s normal for this category of music.
There’s something Ryo Nagamatsu about this song, and – to a lesser extent – with the last track on Love Songs, “Synthia”. For those uninitiated, Ryo Magamatsu is one of the people responsible for the insanity that is the Mario Kart soundtracks (he worked on later games like Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8 specifically).
This might seem like madness or blind association, but stay with me. We tend to be dismissive of music composed for games and for animation, probably born out of the designed-for-kids origins of both things, but if you want to look at the most innovative and exciting work being done both in a compositional sense but also in terms of musical athleticism, you’ll find that much more on game soundtracks than you will on most album releases by “real” artists.
All of this to say, when I put on “Georgia”, it is what I love about the track! There’s a sort of hyper-exuberance to it that makes for a fun switch-up from your standard shoegaze fare, even if they aren’t shredding our faces off the way Ryo & Company might have with the same tune.
All in all, a really fun record. And, you know, if Left Iris wanted to get a really good sax player on their next record, I wouldn’t be mad about it. Take a listen to Love Songs below and follow Left Iris on their socials.
Written by Willow Stonebeck
