The Battle of Sealand
Label: Highwheel
Length: LP
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Battle of Sealand, The
The pronounced, thumping bass line of album opener ‘Introductionâ?� is instantly reminiscent of the similarly distinct four-string introduction of Ride’s ‘Leave Them All Behindâ?� (the opening track on that shoegazer band’s 1992 album). That gleaming mark of clarity, and the noisy washes of guitar surrounding it, serve as an unapologetic announcement that The Battle of Sealand is going to owe a lot to the Scene That Celebrated Itself. Sure enough, by the time the crashing feedback swirl and mumbled melodies of ‘Thinktankâ?� follow it up, a thousand early-’90s NME covers are coming back to haunt you. Even though Airiel has a fair share of Creation albums on the tour-van iPod, the Chicago band is dishing out a decidedly American take on the shoegaze sound. More forceful and confident in its noise-wielding stance, Airiel edges away from the swooning, fragile approach of so many shoegazer bands and instead brandishes their feedback like a weapon. (That said, the one track on which Ulrich Schnauss guests ‘ ‘Sugar Crystalsâ?� ‘ is all expansive, diaphanous beauty.) While so many of the bands they were influenced by ‘maturedâ?� into thin-lipped purveyors of Britpop, Airiel charts an alternate course for this type of music, one that bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Autolux and Brian Jonestown Massacre have also seen fit to explore. Dispensing with the jangly core that informed early Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine records and using those bands’ later, more fully formed works as a foundation, Airiel is making the sort of mercilessly loud and enveloping space-rock that should have been the natural evolution of shoegazing.
This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2007.