Whirl:Distressor

8/10 dropps

Lately, it seems that California has been the home to many brilliant up-and-coming bands, and Whirl are part of this set. Their brand of lush, loud shoegaze had me mesmerized upon the first listen, and I haven’t been able to stop blasting it since. Distressor is the band’s first release and it consists of seven songs that will whirl around you in a sonic wave of reverb, distortion, and echo-y vocals. I wasn’t sure if shoegaze was becoming a dying genre, but these young lads hold promise for the future.

Distressor opens up with “Preface,” an ambient track with a couple washed-out vocal samples. The introduction certainly sets the mood, preparing your ears for the dreamlike state in which they are bound to wind up. Before you know it, the cymbals are flaring and the track transforms into “Leave” with a quick burst of the snare drum. Instantly, the guitars break down the barrier between listener and performer, and the slow, sparse riff (prominent throughout the song) enters the mix. Once again, the band couldn’t have picked a more apt name for themselves, as the sounds they create whirl wildly throughout the invisible spectrum of sound that can’t be visually perceived. Whirl layers the shoegaze-influenced parts perfectly on this track, with the winding guitar riff, the wall of reverb, and the dreamlike female vocals. However, their sound is more direct and driving, relying less on guitar effects and more so on the intensity and rise and fall of their songs.

“Ghost” is another fantastic track on the EP, providing us with a more relaxed and typical presentation of the shoegaze sound. It resembles something you would find on Loveless (My Bloody Valentine) to be quite honest, a record that had a heavy hand in the invention of the shoegaze genre. The guitars on “Ghost” are sparse but still prominent and the drumming is provocative but subtle. Throughout the whole song it even seems like there is a warped sample of a strong wind sweeping through a field that adds a certain ethereal ambiance.

Whirl contains moments where the band picks up the pace and give us songs resembling a bastard mix between My Bloody Valentine and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. “Meaningless” and “Blue” are faster tracks that give off a semblance of ebullience and cheerfulness that is often under-utilized by other shoegaze bands. It gives the band a unique spin, offering more than downright depressing, drawn-out segments of ambient guitar noises.

Unfortunately, some of the band’s songs do seem to blend together. The guitar tone they use and the amount of reverb that they implement tends to make the structures of the songs resemble one another, but it is only a minor detraction. Distressor is a little under 25 minutes long, but it is captivating the whole way through. You can tell the band is still young, but this release is a sure sign of amazing things to come in the future.

-Wilson De Gouveia