The recent revival of the British born genre of shoegaze has pedalled it's way to the cold icy landscapes of Russia. The genre that originally attracted media attention and criticism in the mid-1990s for being The Scene That Celebrated Itself might seem an odd choice for a band that wish to distance themselves from Russia's recent controversial music exports that themselves tagged confrontation: TATU and Pussy Riot. Incidentally, it depends on how you approach the shoegazing genre.

 

Contrary to media belief, Pinkshinyultrablast (PSUB) are not the first shoegaze band from St. Petersburg- Lava Lite formed in 2011 and The Cheshire Strangler are other examples--but they may prove to be the most famous or popular because their music is both approachable and shape-shifting.

 

Never has a seemingly random name been more suitable at describing the sound of a band. There is indeed a blast of explosive proportions as they assimilate the high volume and intense wall of noise stereotypical of Astrobite (the band of whom have an EP that the Russian fivesome borrowed the name from). The loudest blasts feature on the spacious Marigold, Glitter, Ravestar Supreme and opener Wish You Were. PSUB also decided to adopt a technique used by only half of shoegazers including Pale Saints and Charterhouse that lacks emphasis on distinguishable lyrics and instead uses the voice as an additional instrument that blurs intto the background tyrannized by the experimental unstructured guitars and remains subdued in the music layer order.

 

However, lead vocalist Lyubov's murmurs are so innocently sweet-recalling Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof and symbolizing the girly"pink" in the band's name that the contrast is astounding at times and pushes the original idea into an extreme extension.

 

Shoegaze as an attitude, performance style and as a musical platforrm has always been versatile enough to breed with other genres. Even the most accompolished bands in genre's history didn't strictly stick to the rulebook with Lush mixing it with dream pop and allowing for intelligble lyrics, whilst Catherine Wheel happily molding it with post-grunge metallic rock basslines. Pinkshinyultrablast attempt to achieve the same mating and turn it into something that's their own. The most accessible song is Umi. Like the Japanese word for sea, the pre-X&Y Coldplay-esque alternative rock guitar rifts wash over the listener accompanyed by Lyubov's lullabies and seemingly creating a friendly and harmless environment. Yet PSAB employ a stop-start feeling of discomfort which hints at the upcoming soundscape of static rain sprinkled with feedback before absorbing into filmic ambience. Yet it all started off oddly sounding like Kaiser Chief's I Predict A Riot.

 

Other cases of originality occur in Holy Forest, which unsually overlays the shoegaze tendencies of rough and ruthless slide guitar-playing and employs a head-bopping new wave jangle to another set of dual guitars and inviting drums into a synthesizer-created dream-like paradise that could have been imagined by the likes of The Dirty Projectors, Au Revoir Simone or The School of Seven Bells. The electronic clapping is also very infectious. Wish We Were multiplys the vocals to extreme lengths that it's paints the celestial undercoat for the drum machines and also makes it sound like the opening of Vangelis's Ask the Mountains on Metamorphosis before the rhythmic Bloc Party drums kick in.

 

The noise rock elements to their music can be too overpowering though making parts of the album especially the endings unlistenable and headache-inducing when heard in the headphones. Even though this is an ode to the genre they adore, it would be have been more furfilling if they stuck to keeping the experimental nature in the background like in Holy Forest and left the quirky and lush sparkles in the foreground making it pleasant and more diverse. It's a shame to have to skip the endings. However, It's a grower of an album and after each listen, you uncover more hidden crystals inside the snow that it becomes less of a nuisance. MTH

 

Best Tracks: Umi, Holy Forest and Metamorphosis