Customer Reviews

Ardor

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ardor is beautiful. inspiring also comes to mind. from the opening track to the last track, love spirals downward moves into the core of your ability to hear, and offers the most beautiful sounds to bring on a sense of love, hope, and desire. Tracks like "will you fade", write in water, and my personal favorite, "if i could only find it by chance", all are angelic. This cd is a journey through the most beautiful sounds ever made. Don't hesitate.

love spirals downwards' second full length, ardor, is more of what one would expect from the projekt label: that is to say, swirly keyboards, beautiful angelic vocals, and haunting, melancholy lyrics. a little easier to digest than the darker and more experimental black tape for a blue girl, love spirals downwards tred on similar ground to the cocteau twins and english dream pop. their first record "idylls" is a bit better, yet this is a good representation of what this band has to offer. ryan lum creates the atmospherics interacting with suzanne perry's gorgeous voice. stand out tracks are "subsequently", "depression glass", and "avincenna". also includes love spirals downwards' cover of an older black tape for a blue girl song, "tear love from my mind".

I first heard LSD when I was a sophomore in college. ARDOR instantly blew me away with its incredibly lush production and combination of washed guitars (RYAN LUM) and gorgeous female vocals (Suzanne Perry). I don't think that a week has gone by in my life where I have NOT listened to this album and it has been years. There is something ancient and haunted in this music--I suppose that is why it always sounds "right." Do yourself a favor and pick this up.

There is no overstating the beauty and magnificence of this album. _Idylls_ is a bit amateurish, especially the first third or so, and _Ever_ is so evanescent it evaporates upon contact, but _Ardor_ is FLAWLESS! My favorite Projekt release, and probably one of my favorite albums of all time... viva shoegaze...

Somewhat more heavily textured than their first release, "Idylls", there remains a timeless, universally wistful quality to the songs recorded for "Ardor" as well. But where the sound on "Idylls" was more organic in its instrumentation, it's much more atmospheric on their sophomore outing, perhaps due to the rich overlayering of synthesizers with waves of acoustic and processed guitars on a majority of the tracks. The result is never less than gorgeous in presentation, but an underlying sense of hesitation, impermanence, and pensive nostalgia seems to be a pervasive influence. Given this, the CD's title seems to be a little ironic, as "Ardor" is defined as "..great warmth of feeling, fervor, or passion."

A brief glance at the track listing on "Ardor" provides confirmation of this, with titles such as "Will You Fade", "Write In Water", "I Could Find It Only By Chance", "Depression Glass", "Sunset Bell", and "Tear Love From My Mind" reinforcing that suspicion. Further evidence is provided by Suzanne Perry's sweet, expressive soprano, which seems to invest every phrase with a sense of melancholy and sweeping nostalgia for experiences that can only be vaguely remembered, and never definitively recaptured. Ryan Lum embeds her vocals within a mixture of sensitively-plucked or simply-strummed guitar with a folkish tinge on one hand and saturative, elongated drones on the other that, on the opening track ("Will You Fade"), mesh together to build toward a sense of mournfully sustained, explosive release. Several of the tracks dispense with conventional song structure altogether, functioning instead as ambient soundscapes. Keyboards are used to augment this effect throughout the CD.

"Ardor" is cohesive, evocative, expansive, and beautifully haunting, and one of the most richly produced releases from one of the formative groups of the darkwave movement. I highly recommend that you grab one, especially if you're a fan of any of the latter-day Projekt bands.