Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never

Album Review

Although it seems weird to consider the term, Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never is pure "retro"-shoegaze. Come again? Isn't the genre too recent for such terminology? It's shocking to note that 2008 was the 20th anniversary of My Bloody Valentine's jumpstarting Isn't Anything (although, as ever, there were multiple antecedents, like Cocteau Twins). So, odd as it seems, this painstaking reconstruction is as aged as a slavish '77-style punk group in 1997. The difference is that shoegaze's cognoscenti hipness lasted five short years, and there's only been tiny cult pockets of approbation since. Too, the endlessly expansive possibilities of modern neo-psychedelia (a scratch definition) have proved more infinite for dreampop than any-monkey-can punk. So Tears Run Rings may be a dead ringer for Slowdive, right down to their torrents of cascading, distorted, and delayed guitars and ubiquitous male-female cooing, with slight seasongings of Moose, Chapterhouse, and Kitchens of Distinction. Yet, however unoriginal, TRR verge on the precipitous extraterrestrial heights of "Slowdive," "Morningrise," "Catch the Breeze," and "Spanish Air." You'd never know this quintet was filesharing, trading tracks from scattered domiciles in L.A., Portland, and Seattle. It sure doesn't sound mailed; it sounds nailed, in shimmer guitars from heaven, and melodies from childhood lullabies. You, shoegaze fan? You live for this, still, even 20 years on.