Customer Reviews

Idylls [Remastered Reissue]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Love spirals downwards: 'Idylls' is a great, low-key, rainy day kind of CD. There is a general mood of sadness and despair at times then blithesome optimism at others in this CD. Each song sort of collides into the next. There is a unique mesh of sounds with souring electric guitars, acoustics, and kind of tribal sounding drums. The vocals are very serene, soothing, and kind of dreamy, Celtic influenced.

It reminds me of the group `Love is colder than death' a lot, only less dark and gothic. The guitars actually sound like `The Cure' to me, especially in the eighth track, 'Stir about the Stars'.

This is the kind of music you can just lay down on your soft bed, light some candles, put on your head phones, and just let the music take you away.

Love Spirals Downwards's angelic ambient style is fantastic. Idylls peacefully dark dreampop track is a further evidence that Love Spirals Downwards is one of the greatest ethereal bands ever to grace us.

lsd is one group of musicians whose music touches the world on a different level. most music is hear today gone tomorrow, but idylls is an album that can be listen to every day, and never have get old. it also features probably the most moving music the band has made to date. ardor was a great cd, but didn't move as much as this one does. faster beats and more driving keyboard on songs like forgo make this album the bands most diverse. check it out. its a great cd.

Saying that Love Spirals Downward lifted the template for their musical direction from the Cocteau Twins wholesale is an inaccurate accusation. Ryan Lum, the band's multi-instrumentalist, does display a fondness for processed guitar (though not as heavily channeled through effects pedals as Robin Guthrie's work), and Suzanne Perry's rich, mournfully expressive soprano vocals sometimes veer into the realm of glossolalia (though not as drastically as Liz Frazer, whose lyrics were sung almost purely in a fantasy language). But while Cocteau Twins frequently built toward crescendo, to a sense of sustained, explosive release, Love Spirals Downward tended toward a more slipstreamed, levitational slower-to-moderate-tempo approach, primarily supported by acoustic guitar with electric providing punctuative emphasis, minimal percussive instrumentation, and a droning wash of atmospheric, synthesized keyboards that allowed this darkwave band to be categorized as dreampop ,gothic, and shoegaze, depending upon which track on whatever release is being listened to at the time.

Some of the music they have recorded for "Idylls", their debut release, has what I refer to as a universally wistful quality, though on this CD it's not an all-pervasive atmosphere. By this I mean that the musical arrangement, the lyrics, the vocal projection, and even the titles of the tracks themselves create an overall mood that is nostalgic and melancholy, yearning for (and invoking) peak states of mind, emotion, or experience that can be hesitantly recalled but never definitively recaptured. "Love's Labor's Lost", "Illusory Me", "Dead Language", "Drops, Rain, and Sea", and "Scatter January" may be partially composed of glossolalic or nonsense lyrics, but the very titles of these tracks are suggestive of a ruminative ,well-earned grown up sense of the permeable nature of the universe and the transient nature of human experience itself.

Ryan Lum's arrangement on "Idylls" is more organic than what he composed for "Ardor" and "Ever"; it's primarily driven by acoustic guitar, and what treated guitar is incorporated into the tracks is not as heavily processed as what might be found on a shoegazing release, nor are their massive cascades of synthesized orchestration. What interludes of electric guitar appearing on "Idylls" seems complementary to the tracks upon which it's incorporated, and there's nothing remotely resembling heavy distortion. There also seems to be a heavier inclusion of percussive instruments on this release than on their two subsequent CD's. "Love's Labor's Lost", "This Endris Night", "Forgo", "And The Wood Came Into Leaf", and "Illusory Me" are the standout cuts here, while Lum allows his inner shoegazer to emerge for the duration of "Waiting For The Sunrise"

Love Spirals Downward's sound is clearly in its formative stages on "Idylls", but don't let that deter you from adding it to your collection, especially if you're a fan of darkwave, dreampop, or shoegazing. It's beautifully recorded and lovingly rendered, even if a bit on the wistfully gorgeous side. I can definitely recommend it.

If you're reading this you probably know you want the CD already. It's dreamy, moody stuff with a definite Cocteau Twins vibe---ethereal female vocals over layers of processed guitars and synths. I give the music a 4 out of 5, but take off a star for the production, which is overly compressed (not enough dynamic range). Other bands with a similar sound that I'd rate more highly are Autumn's Gray Solace and Fox-Glove Bell.

the first of this duos (ryan lum and suzanne perry) albums just goes to show that more people in a band doesn't necessarily result in better music. all of you lousy DIVA's(christina, britney, mandy, what ever)... take note: suzanne's understated and entrancing voice is SIMPLy a more effective instrument anything you could ever achieve. this absolutely hypnotic and stirring album is just beautiful. of course, you're only taking the word of someone you've never met and have no idea of his musical tastes, but this cd has established itself at the top of my all time favorite list. If you are in the least interested in any aethereal-pop/shoegazer, PICK THIS ONE UP!!!

LSD second album after the first sad one, Ardor. Their music becomes swifter and happier in this production. The angelic voice performd by Suzanne Perry is heavily underlined by the acoustic guitar and bass synthezier. It is like you are in a dream talking to a young girl about hopes, future, and happiness (e.g. Love Labour's Lost). On the other hand, LSD is not afraid to expriment the more daring and moving notes like that in Forgo and Dead Language. You spins with Suzanne's voice in a slow whirling movement on stage. In Eudaimonia, the dreamy notes brings you to another world. Stirs About the Star takes Cocteau Twin's bruised music to another level. And the Woods Comes into Leaf, while ambient, it is surreal-like in closing. There are many great moments, warm and rich, happening while you are unsuspecting. Highly recommended.