Longwave - 'The Strangest Things' (14th Floor)
3/5
By: Toby L
The whole New York thang has proven an exhaustive yet thoroughly resuscitating force in recent years. Influential, copyist, iconic, uninspired - there have been all sides to it, yet - whatever way around it - NY, NY has been the turbulent location that has fuelled a scene to invigorate a generation.
Where does this leave Longwave, then? A band that have toured with fellow city-ites The Strokes and recorded with rockfeedback-contributor Gordon Raphael, surely - already - the credentials are in place for the hit-record, the number-one single and a barrage of dumb blondes pounding their doors for post-midnight coital action? Not so. Bizarrely, the foursome are void of present contemporaries, infusing the early-80s undertones of brooding guitar-wizards; 'Division, Smiths, even U2 (when they were once youthful). The consequences make for a valiant, rapt range.
... If a little too conceited from time-to-time. Naggingly also, the production from otherwise genius Dave Fridmann proves somewhat suffocating, not allowing the band's mass and unmistaken majesty of sound to vary in contrasts within the intervals (i.e. instrumental breaks, the sweeping guitars, etc.) it so desperately needs to. So, what could have been a potentially shuddering, challenging, awe-inspiring debut-LP proper, is instead a simply accomplished and full body of compositions, hinting promise towards the future.
Of the material, the opening 'Wake Me When It's Over' demonstrates some of the 'Wave's most specially dynamic and skilful array of musical-serenity, where Steve Schiltz' direct croon and the band's charging bass/drums and aforementioned guitar-escalations and harmonic-vision makes for a captivating, often beautiful, display. They then of course go commercial on us a couple of times - but none in a more fruitful display as the wondrous nostalgia of 'Pool Song', potentially anthemic, Radiohead-nodding 'Tidal Wave' or rapturous recent single, 'Everywhere You Turn' - and the darkened-room moodiness is further heightened via a searing space-rock 'Exit' and forward-glancing 'I Know It's Coming Someday'.
Elsewhere, it's not that the product isn't quite as stealthily performed or received - but that Longwave too commonly deliver the same package, only swerving the formula for a final instrumental-driven 'Day Sleeper', but - by then - the uncertain may fail to have been converted.
To its credit, repeat-plays do demonstrate 'The Strangest Things' in a finer, broader context, but in a world of five-minute attention-spans and MTV-promoted sound-bites, who's to say that Generation X have got the patience? Well, they should do - because it'd be a travesty if thousands failed to experience the fervour of an act that's at least offering the one thing rock 'n' roll so consistently misses: the balls to break the mould. Whether they're successful in their pursuit just yet remains to be seen, but this is by all means a competent start to such a mission.
Artists in this article: Longwave
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