Tape Deck Mountain - True Deceiver (2021)

I discovered Tape Deck Mountain after they released their third album and so it happened that Echo Chamber Blues was one of the highest praised albums of 2018 on this blog. Now the shoegaze/post-punk Californians are back with another great album called True Deceiver.

It's not always easy to write shoegaze-like noisy and psychedelically chaotic songs that at the same time are catchy enough to instantly draw attention to themselves. It is for Tape Deck Mountain though. From the very first track, Screen Savior, the choruses stay with the audience being extremely difficult to get rid of from head. But the peak of the catchiness is reached with the single track Apocrypha, one that is bound to be one of the audio symbols of this year for me. It's also the closest the album gets to Echo Chamber Blues' sound (unlike this noisier and heavier persona we are getting to know now) and I can't fight my love for this release. 

But probably more important thing is that this is a very noisy and psychedelic music. I would not say it's shoegaze, even the artists say that in quotation marks as it's the safest way of describing a noisy music with delicate vocals. But it's closer to psychedelic noise rock than shoegaze, that's for sure. And the noisy part is not just a decoration either, for most of the songs, like for example Nomo, the guitar noisy and beautifully satisfying experiments build the music's core.

True Deceiver costs 8 USD.

Tape Deck Mountain - Echo Chamber Blues (2018) EN

Check: Apocrypha

Country: California, US

Genre: shoegazey psychedelic rock

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Tape Deck Mountain - Echo Chamber Blues (2018) PL

Gdy łączy się ze sobą wiele gatunków powstaje czasem nowa jakość niedająca się zamknąć w ciasnej szufladce. Tape Deck Mountain poszli tym tropem grając na swojej nowej płycie coś między grunge'owym shoegaze'em a noise'owym dreampopem. A przede wszystkim prezentują doskonale napisaną muzykę.

Już jakiś czas nie słyszałem płyty, na której każdy utwór od razu wpada w pamięć, każdy jest warty odnotowania i zapamiętania. Tak jest z "Loopers of Bushwick", "Morse Code", "Elephant" i każdym kolejnym. Każda buduje osobną historię, nierzadko zahaczają o naprawdę interesujące tematy, zagłębić się warto zwłaszcza w religijne metafory "Elephant". Dzieje się tak nawet gdy utwór pozbawiony jest tekstu ("Bueu") - wtedy to wciągająca melodia nie pozwala się od niego oderwać.

Wysoki i wyprany z emocji wokal Travisa Trevisana nasuwa mi skojarzenia z bardziej eksperymentalną muzyką Suuns, a niezwykle wyraźne i rzucające się w uszy gitary mają w sobie dużo z post-punkowego grania. Kolejnym dowodem na multigatunkowość muzyki zespołu są ich eklektyczne inspirację obejmujące shoegaze'owe MBV, eksperymentalne The Spookfish czy punkowe WRITER. Świetna i wyczuwalna na płycie mieszanka.

"Echo Chamber Blues" kosztuje 24 złote (7 USD).

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Tape Deck Mountain - Echo Chamber Blues (2018) EN

When you blend a variety of genres, sometimes you get a new quality that can hardly be labelled with existing tags. Tape Deck Mountain followed this thought by populating their new album with something between grunge shoegaze and noise dreampop. And what's most important, by making a great and well-written music.

I haven't heard an album where each and every song is instantly being remembered and worth remembering. Not in a while. This is how it goes with the album's "Loopers of Bushwick", "Morse Code", "Elephant" and the following ones. All of them build their own separate story, sometimes covering really interesting topics, especially the religious metaphors of "Elephant" are very much wort diving into. It even happens when a track has no lyrics at all ("Bueu") - in that cases, the mesmerizing melody won't allow you to stop listening to.

The high-pitched and emotionless vocals by Travis Trevisan makes me think of more experimental music by Suuns and the super clear guitars are pretty much of post-punk origins. Another proof of being connected to many genres are the eclectic inspirations the band enlist with shoegaze MBV, experimental The Spookfish and punk WRITER. A mixture that is great and very tangible on the album.

"Echo Chamber Blues" costs 7 USD.

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:instagram:

:spotify: