Voyager One - From the New Nation of Long Shadows
(Loveless)
Seattle's Voyager One must own every single album released by a British band in
the past fifteen years or, at least, every important one. Not only do they own
them, they live by them. They eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Modern and postmodern British rock music is, simply, their raison d'être.
The biggest trend of British music during this period is, arguably, shoegaze,
and this, along with its sister genre space rock, is what Voyager One
takes as their main inspiration, closely linking their sound to late 80s and
early 90s shoegazer bands such as Ride and My Bloody Valentine and space rock
bands like Spiritualized.
The seeds of shoegaze were planted earlier than the late 80s, though. The
Smiths pretty much paved the way for shoegazing, causing the trend away
from the keyboards of New Order and Depeche Mode to guitar-based rock. Take a
song like "How Soon is Now?" with its undulating guitars and hold it up against
the guitars of "Slower California" or "Asleep in a Stereo Field," and the
similarities are more striking than the differences. The
lyrical style is even similar, tweaking Morrissey's sociopolitical, sensitive
boy mope into good ol' fashioned Seattle-style apathy ("you kill yourself and
celebrate the loss"). (Keeping in mind the band is from Seattle, it's funny
and a little awkward that the band's vocalist sounds a lot like David Gahan of
Depeche Mode.) Voyager One also knows that Brit-rock didn't exactly start with
the Smiths, providing a cover of the Beatles' "Daytripper," only the rub is it's
performed at slower than a snail's pace. Gentle, shimmying guitars erupt into
waves of sound that pound down on the familiar chorus. To say the least,
Voyager One make the song their own, and this, their only cover on the album,
may be its most expansive and intriguing song.
Though Voyager One is heavily rooted in shoegaze and space rock, they didn't
exactly give up on the import bin after those shoegazing bands retired and
Brit-pop bands like Suede and The Verve took over. On songs like "(Bess)"
and "Asleep in a Stereo Field," you're not just getting walls of swirling sound,
you're getting thick riffs and vocal hooks, more so than in any pure shoegaze
album. Voyager One is up with current British music as well, sometimes
sounding a bit like Mogwai's more subdued moments (who, of course, also borrow
much from the shoegazing sect). A prime example of this is the glacial
Rex-like country song "In City Light" that builds a gradual crescendo over
its 7 minutes, accented by a simple piano melody, recalling the better parts of
Mogwai's Young Team album.
I've namedropped a lot of famous British bands in this review. Now imagine
how high a rating I would give this album if I actually enjoyed all
those limey bands. Some of them I enjoy immensely, but others, frankly, get
on my nerves with their gender crisis glam posing and their flaccid
guitarsmanship. Despite that, I still like this album quite a bit, and I enjoy
all of it, even the bits obviously inspired by artists I despise. If you are
deeply into shoegaze and space rock, Voyager One might just be your great white
hope. If not, there is still reason to check out Voyager One; the band has
eaten and digested decades of British rock so you don't have to.
|
