Fuzzy Lights – Helm EP

Although Fuzzy Lights’ 2008 debut LP, A Distant Voice, was certainly an impressive introduction, its somewhat austere and inconclusive character didn’t welcome as many return visits as it first seemed open to.  However, this newly-cut 4-track EP does feel like a far more engaging and welcoming creature, even if it comes with the disclaimer of being unindicative of the group’s sophomore long-player, due out later this later.  In some ways, Helm radiates like a different band.  Which is true in a roundabout way, given that core – and married – members Xavier and Rachel Watkins appear to have recorded some/all of this 4-tracker without their regular full set of bandmates.  Yet even if it is more of a between-album detour than a new forward route, this EP stands up sturdily to scrutiny.

Opener “Things We Left Behind” is a mesmeric smouldering triumph.  With its desiccated drum machine, grimy keyboards, serene strings and murkily-cloaked duetting vocals, the prologue piece feels like a finely-matched collaboration between Arab Strap, Thurston Moore and Yo La Tengo.  In its wake, the insistent voice-free arrangement of droning violins and earthy finger-picking across “Aira” imagines a long lost Velvet Underground barn session.  “Burn With Lights” is more impressive still, with its layers of wordless incantations and treated violins being stretched over six sublime minutes.  The closing “Black Diamond” offers a slightly lighter touch to round proceedings off, through a blur of rippling acoustic guitars, strings and distantly-relayed vocals.  Although a sense of violence cuts in towards the song’s end, it crucially holds back from drawing blood.

Whether Fuzzy Lights’ upcoming Twin Feathers LP will match the diverse yet compact execution present here remains to be heard.  Should it not however, there is certainly plenty of dark intriguing matter left to be drawn from the same well of inspiration in future.  In the interim, this EP sounds exceptional in its own pocket of time.

Little Red Rabbit Records

“A Safe Place” by Fuzzy Lights

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