This debut release from Sydney, Australia’s Ides of Space arrived at WMPG late last year and promptly blew my teenie little indie mind. Completely skipping a gawky musical adolescence, this quintet managed to show up on the first day of school with a nearly flawless balance of lush, shoe-gazing melody and carefully controlled bursts of thunderous, fuzzy guitar.
Patrick Haid’s airy, but confident and cleanly recorded vocals and the band’s brilliant soft-loud-soft pop mechanics echo everything once or currently satisfying about bands like Seam and Death Cab for Cutie. Some cuts (“This Side of the Screen” and “Switchboard”) start with quiet hooks and build, while others (“I Promise Not to Notice If You Promise to Pretend” and “No Trace of Fading”) dispense with formalities and launch almost immediately into thick layers of My Bloody Valentine-inspired rock. It’s almost grotesque for a band’s first release to be this damned good, but their over-achieving is our gain.
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