Modern day "Loveless"
S. Bidwell | 12/08/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It's 1:30am. I'm tired but still awake. I grab my headphones and I decide to listen to something to put me to sleep. Randomly, choose "Ashes Grammar" - an album I picked up because of a fantastic (and fantastically written) review by Tiny Mix Tapes. I lay my head back and push play.
Sleep becomes a forgotten memory. I'm totally alive and awake, and for the next hour or so I'm completely absorbed and lost in what just may be the best and most beautiful album released this year. Like Tiny Mix Tapes said, it's rather difficult to write about this music. My best description of it would be as follows: My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" with a little less distortion, a lot more electronic musicality, coupled with layers upon layers of sounds, white noise, (what I think is) live drums, and gorgeous female singing that seems to be coming from the middle of the grandest cathedral in the universe.
Whenever I listen to new music - especially stuff that falls under the rubric of shoegazer, dream pop, noise pop, etc., my first reaction is, "How does this compare to 'Loveless'?" Usually, the answer to that question is that it doesn't come too close at all. But Sunny Day in Glasgow's "Ashes Grammar" has, for the first time since Catherine Wheel, Ride, or Chapterhouse, made me think that perhaps music can equal the shimmering beauty of "Loveless"."