Advance word on this Philly four-piece's second album was all about the shoegaze, but spending a little time with the record reveals the limitations of the term. Yes, vocals are buried and distortion is moderately high, but there's not much in the way of the oceanic-- no single moment calling for a rapturous surrender to prettified noise. On record, at least, Relay seem like a rock band that thinks about songs first and arrives at their eventual sound through a more circuitous route. Their sound is prickly and defined, where you can hear the attack on the guitar strums, and blurry overtones are seeded with bright college-rock jangle. Sometimes I hear chord patterns that remind me of the Police circa "Invisible Sun"; other places it's more like something from the Stone Roses' debut. My Bloody Valentine... not so much.
Which is not to push expectations too high: There are some surprisingly strong moments here-- ones that suggest a bright future for Relay-- but the record is top-loaded. Opener "New Domestic Landscape" is really catchy, crisp guitar pop with a jittery sensibility: a song that, with a different arrangement, could easily be new wave. The following "Driver" is even better, with a chugging rhythm guitar that sets up a drone being continually undercut by shimmering arpeggios on top. It's the kind of melancholy guitar rock that balances the gloom with unabashed tunefulness, and it'll always bring to mind the underground 1980s. Even so, Relay don't sound like they're just imitating. So far, like, wow. The slower, grander "Season (Start)" is the band's first chance to layer the effect pedals thick and they take advantage of it, and by "IDK" they're throwing in short blasts of white noise squall. But here the record loses some of its character, as the sharp tunefulness of the first half, which gives the textures a skeleton to hang on, grows a little duller. By the time it gets to the throbbing instrumental "Prlll", it's clear that atmosphere isn't these guys' strong suit, however well they dress up their better songs. The final third of Still Point of Turning offers variations on what's come before; none of it is particularly bad or particularly memorable. So ultimately, we've got a small handful of very nice tunes and a lot of promise, which at this point isn't all bad. It's easy to picture these guys putting together a full album that works all the way through.
