However, their new release, which quietly slipped under my radar in late January (and is appropriately titled Glaciers//Melted), is a fresh and decadent new sound for the boys. Though it's being advertised as a "chopped and screwed" take on Glaciers, I feel there's something fundamentally different going on here, as they allow their compositions to morph and mutate for upwards of ten minutes at a time, allowing them to breathe more as suites than songs.
They're mining vaguely similar territory as Shlohmo and Ryan Hemsworth, with androgynous/anonymous vocals wafting above smoky, vaporous production; what sets them apart from their blog-wave (can that just be a thing now?) peers is an uncanny feel for mood and tone. In particular, "II" contains some of the most ravishing, overcast slow-fi I've ever heard, unfurling amid languorous keyboards and a subtle hi-hat driven beat, with a disembodied singer asking insistently, "are you ready to love?"
The strobing, hallucinatory, empty prom-hall feel is particularly pronounced on "IV" which evaporates midway through only to rebuild itself as a sort of phantasmagoric Phil Collins power ballad, with gorgeously melodramatic synths swelling and big rock drums, reverb'ed to within an inch of their lives, the way 80's rock drums are wont to be.
There are a few lulls, as can be expected with an album crafted entirely out of slowed down bits of pre-existing material, but the whole experience ends up being an immersive, trippy journey through some alluring, obscure sonic territory. More, please.
