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The Biggest Waves Come At Night
2009 Levator Music *****BUY HERE***** Sky Lynn's voice echoes over languid shoegaze melodies in Levator, a three-piece band whose sedate, dreamy tunes, occasional chanting, and tambourines would seem perfectly at peace in a temple accompanied by thick, cloying incense. Lynn's lyrics are mostly indecipherable, but that's OK: Levator's ethereal sound floats like a feather on Lynn's angelic soprano. This is music for a vision quest (OK, psychotropic drugs), because for all its vast, galactic spaciousness, the psychedelic haze Levator creates feels less like an opaque, oppressive force and more like the warm, enveloping presence of an omniscient being whose otherworldly warble is there to lead you out of the fog and into psychic (if not sonic) clarity. SEATTLE WEEKLY - 9/30/09 Levator (pronounced like "elevator" without the "e") is an integral member of the Northwest's hearty-but-underappreciated psych/shoegaze/experimental crowd, and their plaintive, achingly pretty songs are just one example of that scene's baffling diversity. With the incorporation of Psychedelic Fur-sy tenor sax and a healthy dose of shameless ballad grandeur, Levator has distinguished themselves admirably by weaving plush, multi-layered soundscapes to cushion Sky Lynn's airy, ethereal vocals. This is a band inspired more by the graceful, placid promise of early shoegaze recordings (The Jesus and Mary Chain, MBV, Slowdive, etc.) than by those bands' comparatively ferocious, ear-‘sploding live presence. It's unlikely that Levator will batter your ears, but they just may break your heart. WEEKLY VOLCANO - 7/31/10 |
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