Porcelain God - CS 2013

Three beautiful tracks from Tacoma's fairly new child Porcelain God. Dubbing music "Shoegaze" is very popular right now and unfortunately that's what this band was described to me as before I saw them. There seems to be somewhat of a resurgence of popularity in the 'genre' especially in the contemporary hardcore scene. As is usual of the contemporary hardcore scene people bastardize and conflate the term with music that sounds absolutely nothing like it. Don't get me wrong britpop and dreampop gave me some of the best music my ears have ever beheld but when there are a lot of elements that kill it for me (to name a few, not the biggest fan of most American attempts at the genre, the boom ended in the nineties as did most even decent representations of the music, etc. etc.) they are then narrowed and trickled through the funnel of contemporary efforts that have no idea how to present the music effectively... this leaves you with pretty much nothing. But alas! There are bands that do it proper, US efforts in the 90's like LA's Medicine killed it, and even now contemporary efforts like NY's The Daysleepers are doing it proper. Now on to Porcelain God. This cassette is incredible. I absolutely love it. All three songs have a progression that could lull anyone into a trance of introspection and or sleep but I would not throw them into a subgenre that died decades ago. Where there are dreampop elements apparent in the music (The dirgy strumming of power chords over melodies and tremolo ala My Bloody Valentine and I even catch hints of Lush) seeing this band live was really much different than the recordings. It reminded me a lot more of 90s post-punk and indie like The Promise Ring and Texas is the Reason. I really don't know why because it doesn't translate that way at all on recording. "Drive Me Around" is a dirgy drive to a hypnotic hook with a bridge sure to give the listener vertigo, "Learn Silence" gives you that tremolo, delay and abrasive guitar effects everyone craves with a surprisingly upbeat chorus, and "Very Bad Dream" ends the tape with a hypnotic crunch and distant echoed vocals. This is one of the best things I've heard come out of Tacoma in a while. Keep it up! Taiga said they have plenty of practice recordings but no new music yet! I'm excited to hear more. Remember kids, you can't put together a pedal board and call your band shoegaze because it has melodies, delay and tremolo. Sorry about the rant, I'm tired.



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