Ides of Space
There Are No New Clouds
[Better Looking; 2001]
Rating: 6.7
Well, here's a blast from my past. Kind of, anyway. If you'd just thrown this
disc on and asked me where and when it was played, I would have guessed Manchester,
England, 1992 without giving it much thought. And I probably would have wondered
how such a good little shoegazer record had managed to elude me as I swept the
genre clean several years ago. You see, big, swirly, noisy British rock was the
music that finally broke my close-minded assumption that no one had made any good
music after the 70s. And once I found it, I dove in deep, scooping up all the
Ride albums I could find and hunting down all of the elusive Boo Radleys records
and EPs I could find. If asked, I could produce a pretty massive stack of discs
that fit at least vaguely in the category, from acknowledged classics like
Loveless to obscurities like a 14 Iced Bears compilation.
Of course, Ides of Space's debut album wasn't recorded in 1992, nor in Manchester,
England. Rather, it's just an anachronism from Sydney, Australia. And damned if
I don't love it. I suppose it's my lot to like an album like this, given the
special place this kind of music has in my heart. But while I love it, I have to
face facts-- There Are No New Clouds breaks no new ground whatsoever and
the ground it does tread is already beaten halfway to death.
"This Side of the Screen" opens the album with clean guitars and crisp drums that
could have come straight off of Ride's Nowhere. Patrick Haid intones in a
heavily accented tenor and gets through most of a verse before the inevitable wall
of distortion blasts in from both speakers and wraps everything in a dense fuzz.
"Arthur's Car" follows with a much brisker rhythm and mostly clean guitars, opting
instead to allow Martin Barker's keyboards to fill in the spaces that would
normally be occupied by noise. Haid's voice is doubled over the top, delivering
a strong melody in a tone reminiscent of some of American indiedom's tweer elements,
like Witch Hazel and Spectacle.
From there, the band blasts through eight other blissed-out nuggets, most of which
would have been worthy of an NME Single of the Week column about a decade
ago. At this point, though, they're simply enjoyable, and I think the quality of
the music says something for the band. The way they play and write, it's hard to
believe they've only been together for two years. The melodies are well developed
and the playing is technically flawless, yet rough enough to sound real. The only
consistently unpredictable timbre is Barker's keyboard, but the Ides vary the feels
and tempos enough that the songs don't blur together.
"Random Noise Generator" ably displays the band's tightness and skill with its
switch from a quiet, slow, spacy intro into a quick-paced rocker with an impressive
instrumental breakdown in the middle. The band builds toward a climax but instead
stops short with a brief silence before blasting back into the verse. The device
is a little less effective when repeated for the outro, but they vary the approach
slightly by filling the silence with a delay-drenched keyboard and cropping the
buildup.
Guitarist Mark Ayoub serves up some appealing, if highly derivative, lead parts to
counterbalance Haid's airy lead vocal on "I Promise Not to Notice If You Promise
to Pretend." The rhythm section of brothers Anthony and David The hits particularly
hard on this song, too, laying down a solid, driving foundation for the other
members' more skyward aspirations.
It's followed by "Computer World," which, though unfortunately not a surprise
Kraftwerk cover, offers a good look at the band's facility with slower, quieter
songs. Beginning with sparse guitar strumming and a distant keyboard drone that
wouldn't sound terribly out of place on an old Talk Talk or recent Hood record,
it evolves into a windswept ballad that makes good use of space between instruments
and notes, only opting to fill it with loud distortion near the very end.
Part of what makes this album so successful is the guiding hand of producer Wayne
Connolly, who sees to it that, no matter how loud or noisy it is, no one part
overwhelms any of the others in a way that it shouldn't. In addition to being
well and confidently played, this album even sounds good. This record isn't
really for everybody, though-- if you're not already a convert to the shoegazer
aesthetic, this won't be the disc that changes your mind. But despite the fact
that it doesn't really do anything that original, there's plenty of good stuff to
be found here, and There Are No New Clouds, while an unintentionally
accurate title, at the very least reveals a young band with scads of potential.
If they came this far in two years, imagine where they'll be after two more.
-Joe Tangari, March 5th, 2002