I had the pleasure to be woken up by this track this morning and I can assure you, it kicked in a hell of a lot more than caffeine!! After all the waiting, and many releases of formerly beloved bands that were sort of .. meh… I didn’t know what to expect anymore. But this brandnew track is befitting of Airiel and beyond expectations! I was blown out of my chair!
I have been waiting for the new Airiel album for ages…… since I really think they are the best that new-or -old shoegaze has/had to offer: dreamy cathedrals and noisy spirals molten into one, truly great compositions, lead vocals reminiscent of those of Patrick Fitzgerald (Kitchens of Distinction) and some phenomenal drumming. “Sharon Apple” has graced my earphones so many times they got worn: nothing like the sheer elation that this song evokes! But…after having been around during the 1st shoegaze wave and having lived quite intensely through its revival I got a bit shoegaze-tired to be honest. I personally don’t like to be narrowed down in music in the slightest, and the shoegaze police (“this is NOT shoegaze“) was frankly getting on my nerves. At some point I just heard it all before, and decided to go for stuff that was a bit more flexible, creative and hybrid-natured.
However, upon hearing “This is Permanent“, I was, once again, strongly reminded of what I love and loved so much about the sound of shoegaze. It reminded me of the same sensation that knocked me off my feet when watching MBV perform “You made me Realise” for the first time in 1992: a feeling of being swallowed up by this huge “thing”, this transgressing sound so much bigger than yourself or anything for that matter. This drowning abyss of noise that, for the moment it lasted, made the earth shake and made you forget about boundaries, ego, and time.
“This is Permanent” was of the same seismic-moment-of force, as the very best of the terrifyingly beautiful noise that shoegaze can be. After the intriguing suspense of the drum-intro, something happens that unexpectedly blasts me out of the room…… makes my eyes pop, heart jump and for a moment, I stop breathing from sheer shock and rapture! It makes me wanna scream! It shakes, it shimmers and trembles and then at 1:52 it takes us up, up, soaring into prismatic skies, and let’s go of tension and chaos…..and we look down and dive back in and out of this state of hair-raising bliss, onto a bridge that goes straight through our bones….. until all the noise folds back on itself again.
If only life was as wild and intense, like this song, every day……Ladies and Gentlemen: Airiel are back!
Airiel’s long waited album “Molten Young Lovers”, their second full-length LP, will be out on Oct 13, 2017. (The album is the much-anticipated follow-up to 2012’s Kid Games EP.)
