Small Black - New Chain

Glo-fi, chillwave, call it whatever you want – there can be no denying it’s been one of the dominant sounds of 2010; and the good news for those who’ve so far resisted climbing aboard the backlash bandwagon is that the trend shows little sign of abating just yet. From its beginning, it’s been a ‘movement’ (if it can even be called that) that’s very much rooted in the internet: where previous subgenre scenes have tended to be centred around a tangible location (think Madchester, Seattle grunge or, more recently, the Montreal indie community), chillwave comprises a disparate number of artists making bedroom-birthed recordings in relative isolation from one another. The music invariably harks back to cringe-worthy 1980s pop – some of these guys actually seem to like Tears For Fears – but is executed in a soft-focus, hazy lo-fi style. Synth notes drifting off key are a trademark, and a general bleary-eyed feeling of late-summer sadness infuses much of the best of what glo-fi has to offer. It’s all undeniably hip, but it nevertheless can sound occasionally great in the hands of someone like Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo, who seems capable of a sort of pop alchemy, crafting brilliant songs out of unpromising ingredients.

Small Black couldn’t really be more chillwave if they tried – they tick just about every single box mentioned above, in fact. And if New Chain isn’t quite good enough to elevate them above also-ran status, it does at least throw up some lovely moments. The case for the defence rests largely on two superb tracks: ‘Hydra’ is utterly gorgeous, the song’s sighing melody gradually revealing itself over the course of four minutes that reminded these ears of Animal Collective’s ‘Bluish’. Almost as lovely is ‘Light Curse’, its loping tune and hypnotic rhythms again more than a little reminiscent of Noah Lennox and co. – albeit this time more in line with Feels-era AnCo.

Unfortunately what seems to hold these Brooklynites back from landing a great debut is a couple too many duds, and an overriding sameness that creeps in when attempting to swallow New Chain whole. The title track, coming immediately after ‘Light Curse’, is slight by comparison, while ‘Crisp 100s’ sounds like an idea that never quite got off the ground. The pace and tone are just a little too unchanging over the course of these ten tracks – this is an album that could really do with a fast song here or there, as the rest of the songs tend to bleed in to one another.

New Chain is far from perfect, then, and anyone looking for an impressive introduction to the genre is still directed to the aforementioned Neon Indian as well as Twin Shadow’s more recent (but equally brilliant) Forget LP. That being said, existing fans of those records will certainly find something to get their teeth into here.