THRUSHES "Sun Come Undone" CD   $9.98 - Buy CD

Venerating Phil Spector as the patron saint of sonic emotion, their premise is strikingly simple. Rock music should be beautiful. Casey’s guitar work elevates grand canyon reverb to high art. More canvas than skeletal structure, its wall of sound is huge and enveloping. Giving form to these dreamscapes are Anna’s simple, pretty vocal lines, which she colors with clean, clear guitar picking. Out of the sonic swirl, Rachel manages to distill a bass line somewhere between rock-steady groove and the root melody of a lullaby. Her parts construct a visible road map for Matt to effortlessly meander through. With bells and shakers sitting on a table beside the hi-hat, his drumming is more orchestral than rock’n’roll and is peppered with beautiful triangle and xylophone melodies.

On Sun Come Undone, their debut full length, Thrushes craft gorgeous noise pop and swirling dream rock. Opening with the cavernous drumming of “Aidan Quinn” into the revved-up, fuzzed out Jesus And Mary Chain-esque “Heartbeats,” and carried through the nods to Deadcan Dance in “Loyalty” and haunted claps of guitar thunder on “Ghost Train,” to the final feedback soaked fallout of “The Hardest Part,” this is the sound of blood on blood.

RIYL: My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, Asobi Seksu, Serena Maneesh

Songs:

1) Aidan Quinn
2) Heartbeats
3) Loyalty
4) Into the Woods
5) Flying
6) Ghost Train
7) Halloween
8) New Years Kiss
9) Wake Up
10) Roy
11) The Hardest Part

Audio Samples:

- MP3

Reviews:

“cotton candy guitars and sticky reverb-drenched melodies shimmer with reverb and shudder with echo as [they] make love to their effects pedals and wide-screen guitars.” — Baltimore City Paper

Hitting streets March 13 is Thrushes' Sun Come Undone. This Baltimore-based band is on a mission to make reverb a household word. Luscious and saccharine, Thrushes' sound replicates the 'wall of sound' like it's a full-time job, and on tracks like "Into The Woods", guitarist Casey Harvey presents a case study in why Rickenbackers and reverb have more in common than simply beginning with "r". The Thrushes sound is never cloying, however; in fact, Harvey's distinctive sound plays perfectly into the simply elegant vocals of Anna Conner, a vocal minimalist who manages to thread her singing into the woven texture of each song. Complementing the guitar/vocal combination of Conner and Harvey are Matt Davis on drums and Rachel Tracy on bass. Throughout the better part of Sun Come Undone, Davis reveals that he understands the quality that percussion has as a complement to the group's overall sound, while still managing to steal his moments without too much bombast on "Aidan Quinn" and "Heartbeats". Rachel Tracy's bass is often subtly wound into the band's graceful noise pop, but leaves its indelible footprint clearly visible in the introduction to tracks like "Roy" and "The Hardest Part", setting the path for the band's foray into the ensuing song. On the latter half of the album, tracks such as the patient and instrumental "New Years Kiss" and "Roy", build up to a sustainable crescendo while earlier tracks like "Ghost Train" and "Into The Woods" come on strong much faster, delivering an unforgiving shoegaze sound that can often be as much compared to Jesus & Mary Chain as it can Sonic Youth in the "Bull in the Heather" days. Worth more than just a listen, Thrushes could find their way into your CD player for quite some time. Rating: 4 out of 5. — Any Given Tuesday.com