Super Vacations / Henry

Shdwply

“Definitely one of the more ambitious and mysterioso bands of this run-down, SUPER VACATIONS provide a perfect example of a group turning the limitations of home-recording to their advantage, assembling a beguiling psych rock sound from the palette of slightly warped rock n’ pop elements at their disposal. Their debut album burns through sixteen songs in about twenty-five minutes, each of them a swirling wonder of crisply recorded hi-hat n’ snare grooves, twangin’, FX heavy surf guitar, hazy layers of psychedelic jangle, occasional bursts of chaotic space-fuzz washout and ultra-compressed vocal tracks that range from pristine, chanted harmonies to distorted answering machine skree. Recalling the spirit of classic-era Guided By Voices records, these one-to-two minutes cuts are veritable bonsai trees of weird beauty that make their point and then disappear into the void, providing tantalizing glimpses into what we assume to be a whole universe of unguessed at four-track wonderment. Inevitably, Super Vacations’ songwriting is sketchy and indistinct in comparison to the heights scaled on a daily basis by Ohio’s finest in the mid-‘90s, but nonetheless, they’ve got a good handle on the kind of sound they’re going for, and the material at hand is up to the task, allowing them to stand proud alongside the very best of the ‘90s neo-psych-pop mob (Lilies, The Swirlies, pre-ego meltdown Brain Jonestown Massacre etc.) without ever having to venture beyond their basement. (I'd like to think this band's stuff was recorded in a basement. It... has that kinda feel to it. I'd be disillusioned to discover actual sunlight was involved at any stage.)”—Shdwply

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