Despondent Transponder: Not Just a Fleeting Joy

            This is a retrospective review of the Fleeting Joys album Despondent Transponder (2006), and the 12th review on this blog.

            Fleeting Joys is a Shoegaze band from California, in a mainly traditional sense.  There are moments when they are more 90s alt-metal/alt-rock than shoegaze, but overall, this is one of those albums I’d recommend to anyone who wants to know what shoegaze sounds like, and who might not have had as much time bleeding their ears on the progenitors like I have (figuratively).  They have a great sound, with mainly drifting guitars, driving bass, riding drums, and vocals with a dreamy quality resurrected from the shoegaze-explosion of the 90s.
            I actually came across their formerly-lost song, Golden Now, first, and after listening to it a couple dozen times on headphones, I wanted more.  Fortunately, Despondent Transponder didn’t disappoint.  This is a strong album, and I’m glad I can write about it, even though they’ve since released newer material, because it’s so richly textured, and raw.  After all this time, it’s still relevant and enjoyable, as loads of the album just sticks with you.
            Here’s my TBT:

            The album starts with the song “The Breakup”.  It’s a modern-style shoegaze purist track, with loads of reverse-reverb and transparent overdrive.  A great start, it’s a chilled-out track, and they make use of the Kevin Shields glide guitar style of playing well.  This is another epitome of shoegazing music, like last week’s, but in a different way.  Fleeting Joys have a certain laid-back harshness about their sound on Despondent Transponder that makes their sound generally somewhere between indie rock, metal, and shoegaze proper.  Vocals are beautiful, layered, and calmly foreboding; drums ride in the verses, and are hard-hitting in the choruses; bass blasts out overdriven tones; and there’s even a great coda with samples and a perfect example of shoegazing in its element.

            “Lovely Crawl” comes next, and it’s a kind of hard-rock shoegaze mix.  Enveloping guitar and great soft breathy vocals are nicely juxtaposed by heavy bass, and slow-driving drums.  There are loads of layers in the track, many of them vocal, but some guitar, like the solos that shout out alt-rock done right.

            “Go and Come Back” is the third track.  It’s slower and softer than most of the album.  The guitar drifts in and out of its own reverb, and the vocals are beautiful.  The drums throughout are textured and played in a way to perfectly support and shine at the same time, as the bass grounds.  “Go and Come Back” is like lifting from the ground, but knowing you’ll never get lost in the sky.

            “I Want More Life” starts out with some string-samples being pitch warped, and then erupts into a kind of upbeat shoegaze speed-metal, in which the drums speed the track up, and the guitar give the illusion that the drums aren’t going fast at all.  Of course, it can certainly get the heart going, but it calms as it rages on.  It’s like an upper and a downer, not that I’d advise either of those non-musically.  It’s amazing that instrumental tracks can get this good.

            “Satellite” is fast and washed out with great guitar and high vocals.  The bass gives a backdrop to the track, and actually helps keep the key for the vocals, because great drums and warped guitar only help to imbue the track with a chaotic ordered-ness.  There’s an instrumental bridge after the middle of the track that’s to die for.  Look for it, and repeat ad infinitum.

            “While I’m Waiting”, the sixth track, comes after a low-end distorted fade-in.  The keyboard is like a good pop-line from the 90s, in the midst of a great 90s revival song.  It sounds optimistic, even though the lyrics are a bit Slowdivey.  Layered vocal harmonies fade out with the sweet anachronistic bass-line at the end.

            “Magnificent Oblivion” warps and flourishes, and a kind of repeating tremolo that sounds like a cd skipping on a synth track gives it a nice catchiness inside of the atmosphere created by warm bass, soft drums (with classic shoegaze-style cymbal rides), shy and dreamy vocals, and cold-and-aching-sounding guitar.  It’s a longer track, and addictive to boot.

            “Where Do I End” is the eighth track, and it sounds more 90s metal than shoegaze, even though it’s definitely a crossover.  I love the vocals and tonal combinations of the guitar and bass.  Actually, I love the ultra-90s-alt-rock drums too.  Actually, I adore this whole album, so if I don’t mention something, it’s not for lack of enjoyment.  Loads of fuzz and some great fake-out endings and hiss near the end.

            “Young Girls Fangs” comes next.  It begins with static, and what sounds like a guitar (or five) being fed through a Leslie speaker (or an emulator of one).  It’s another instrumental, and synths and guitar sound like the only parts to this track, even though bass is prevalent.  It’s just that the bass is so melded perfectly with the guitar’s chords and rhythm (and rejection thereof), that it doesn’t sound like anything could be that on-time outside of being built-in.

            “Patron Saint” is a hard-rock shoegaze mix.  The bass and drums are more modern rock (well-performed modern-rock, that is), and the vocals are more chilled out.  The guitar is almost impossible to describe without talking about pedals, looping, and sounds that defy description.  So instead of trying to analyze it to death, I’ll just say that it creates a kind of wildly out-of-control atmosphere, that somehow the bass manages to persuade back into non-noise-rock territory.  It’s an odd song to end on in some ways (it was the original ending of Despondent Transponder, before Golden Now was rediscovered by the band), but it does sound like an ending nonetheless.  And a bit like a Sonic Youth solo.

            “Golden Now” is the last track on the digital version of Despondent Transponder.  It’s a Heavenly sound with loads of slowly modulated guitar, bass supporting all the tones, drums that grab the attention with analogue-sounding distortion, and a killer vocal-lyrical combination.  It’s the reason I found this album, really.  As complex as it is laid-back, and dark as it is uplifting, it’s a paradox set to music.  Just listening to the drums brings by my adoration of tube mics, and the whole thing is done to a T.

            Overall, an amazing and interesting display of power and grace, usually simultaneously.  Fleeting Joys has since released a new album, and you can stream both for free at http://fleetingjoys1.bandcamp.com, and purchase CD-quality downloads at that link as well.  Like many bands, they can’t live up to their name.  The joy that is Fleeting Joys actually lasts a long time.

(is it): It Is

            This is a review of Dead Mellotron’s newest (and possibly last) EP, (Is It) (2012), and the fourth review (and first bonus review) here on Track-By-Track.

            I first heard Dead Mellotron when I was searching for shoegaze and dream pop bands on Bandcamp.  I’ve found quite a few great bands that way, which is likely a main reason why the huge labels are scared of the digital era.  I was still really forming my ideas about what shoegaze and dream pop are when I found Dead Mellotron’s 2009 release, Ghost Light Constellation.  This EP just about confuses the two sub-genres further, but in a good way.
            (is it) is a great gapless EP, after which you won’t know what hit you.  Even though there are just four tracks, its emotionally powerful effect is enough to merit loads more poetry than I could write into this review.  I’ll save it for the next Eliot, or Whitman, or a different blog of my own (egotism intended).
            In the meantime, here’s my TBT:

            The EP starts with “Fade In/Out”.  The first thing I wrote about this track was: It sounds like the sun, if it could speak in music.  This is dream-pop heaven, with warbling synth pads, dreamy vocals, and hard yet loving drums.  Dead Mellotron has done it again.  The harmonies bring the song up, but the synths drive you straight above the clouds.  Even though there have been some great tracks from Dead Mellotron before, this stands out as an amazing musical achievement for Dead Mellotron, like R.E.M.’s “The Great Beyond”, but solidly in the dream-pop sub-genre.

            “Weird Dreams” is the second track, which has some great shoegaze guitars, within the scope and breadth of its total dream-pop.  It’s like there’s a string section, without the strings, with the way the guitars and synths compliment each other.  The lyrics are sparse, and almost lo-fi-style.  The vocals sound pitch-corrected, but I couldn’t care less with the atmosphere this track brings.  The deep bass drives it home, and the drums, though obviously samples, remind of My Bloody Valentine.

            The third track, “Vacation”, is a vacation from lyrics and vocals.  It’s heavily compressed and modulated to the extreme, yet without the stonewalling that most songs and remasters have now.  It’s like a coda by Kevin Shields himself, with synths and guitars, even though I don’t know whether there are any synths, or if this is a track in which there really was a labyrinth of pedals near the guitarist's shoes.  It leads gently into the last track.

            “Vacation II” is a continuation of the previous track, but by no means instrumental.  The vocals return, as feint whispers of a mood, without form to really give shape to recognizable words.  Great choral-style samples, and just enough echo, mixed with a strong drumbeat and ocean of guitar; and the deep bass is more noticeable when they cut out.

            Overall, it's like a great tape of music was left out in the sun, and was warped, and that somehow made it better.  It’s instantly replayable, and each listen brings some new part of it to light.  This whole EP solidifies Dead Mellotron’s place in the shoegaze/dream pop crossover that few artists exemplify as well.  Sadly, this might be the last we hear from Dead Mellotron (they've announced through Facebook that their last gig is in July), so this might be a kind of Abbey Road.  You can download this EP for pay-what-you-want, and more from Dead Mellotron, at http://deadmellotron.bandcamp.com.  Like a room filled with sunlight and warmth, outside a snowy mountain (like the one on the cover), it’s a secretive and warm EP, with qualities that defy explanation.  This is why I love dream pop.