Glass Rock: Tall Firs Meet Soft Location

This album grows soft and tall and is rather magical at times. The third song especially, which is called ‘possession’; an unassuming three minute combination of acoustic guitar, mellifluous bass and reverbed electric bobbing on the soft swell instigated by the rolling tom drum rhythm. These elements are central to the records sound, but the catalyst in Glass Rock is a fine, impassioned vocalist.

Sounds like she really likes to sing, especially about things that mean something to her. But it’s not heart on sleeve songwriter plus band: she seems to be playing off them, not expecting it to go the other way. It’s good to hear people excited about singing, it’s as if she could be instigated by anything remotely musical, like Bjork in Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark.

Drummer is the dude from Tall Firs, a band I don’t know much about, but he’s as good here as he was on the recent Hush Arbors record. Maybe everyone else is in a band called Soft Location, I can’t be sure: I used the press release in the fireplace. There’s a handful of songs on this short record that stand out in memory, the aforementioned ballad, the opener ‘glass rock’, ‘golddigger’, and ‘take it back’. The rest makes up a dreamlike drift to these ears, but it’s not woozy. It all gives off a crisp morning clarity and provides the perfect context for the distinctly memorable melodies to rise up from. The production is radiantly clear without having any sharp edges, the record exists without putting any pressure on the listener. I can almost see the Spring from here.

The more I listen to it the more I feel perplexed by the contradiction: the seeming straightforwardness of the band and the element of rarity, a unique flash. It’s nothing overwhelming, but to me that’s the magic of a record like this. Glass Rock are unassuming, they don’t demand your attention, they earn it if you give them the time and the right attention. I value that kind of experience, it’s very human. It’s like turning up at your local pub and being captivated and moved by a band doing something you’d usually let pass you by. There is a disarming sincerity in each and every note.

I’m also struck by the way the band flirt with being stylistic, but retain a sort of basicness which precludes them from having a “punky one”, a “sad one” a “50’s one” and an “electro one”; the sort of dead end that Devendra Banhart is kicking his heels in. As I was saying, they sound like a band who are playing what comes naturally to them, not flying anyone else’s flag. On ‘lion dance’ she seems be articulating how she likes an evening to go. It sounds romantic,

“I like to think my style is to think wildly”

Sounds like a good approach too. My favourite is probably ‘Open Air’, it has the slightest air of dissonance, a scent of warning, a glitch in the landscape. The musical equivalent of intuition; the brief guitar solo that follows the first delivery of the broken-plea chorus hits an odd note; it stays there as if to reflect on the omen. The singer does well to hold back a little when she could clearly be belting it out, it lends the song another shade of power.

Being twenty five I can’t help but imagine this band being used in the climactic bittersweet romance scene of a late nineties indie film. As they close the record out with ‘Take it Back’ I can see them on a low-lit stage, I’m eighteen again. If that makes you run, fine. It’s not that they sound like Kevin Smith/Linklater’s new favourite band, more like they actually convey the emotions that those two often sought to symbolise (with varying degrees of success).

And before the worst attempts pushed me into a dismissal of that kind of film and everything associated with them I felt some strong and inspiring things about life. Glass Rock have the ability to re-ignite the feelings and gracefully side-step the clichés.