Pinkshinyultrablast have been together nearly a decade, but they’re still chasing the clock. The Russian outfit has been living on borrowed time since 2007, when four lifelong music nerds from Saint Petersburg decided to start a band, knowing full well that they’d have to part ways in a few months’ time to attend university. Determined to defy those temporal restraints, the quartet worked in fits and bursts, using every pocket of free time as a chance to commit their memories to wax.
Somehow, they've found ways to develop as a band even with this scattershot work schedule. Just this February, Pinkshinyultrablast released Grandfeathered, an underrated collection of sophisticated—and thunderous—pop songs. Several months after the band's most intricate release to date, London’s Club AC30 is taking a look back on their hurried early period with a reissue of Happy Songs for Happy Zombies, their debut EP. Frequently pointed to as an underrated gem by the modern shoegaze faithful, the four-track, 15-minute collection provides an enjoyable (if brief) introduction to the band’s rapturous take on rock.
Much like the Astrobrite album that inspired Pinkshinyultrablast's name, Happy Songs for Happy Zombies plays it maximalist. The aptly titled opening salvo “Blaster” spills forth in a rush of massive, fanning guitar riffs, whirring feedback, and bass throb. Guitarist Roman Parinov may not sing lead—that job belongs to frontwoman Lyubov Soloveva—but his screechy axe is the track’s strongest voice, easily engulfing her fragile melodies. Soloveva can’t be contained, however—just as Parinov seems to have her buried on “Blaster” or “Ode to Godzilla,” she phases through him, gently guiding the roar beneath her and preventing the music from dissolving into chaos.
Soloveva, Parinov, and company certainly take cues from amp-stackers like My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver, but their biggest inspiration on Happy Songs for Happy Zombies arguably isn’t shoegaze, or even musical. In a 2015 interview with Indie is Not A Genre, Soloveva revealed the group’s fascination with the Russian custom of dacha: an annual exodus from city apartment to country cabin for a few months of hard-earned rest and reflection. The burbling “Honeybee,” certainly feels like the type of song inspired by a day of cloud-gazing; it sees Parinov loosening up and letting the notes unspool steadily atop a fluttering backbeat. Between the lurching, grunge-y verses on “Deerland” and “Blaster”’s aforementioned wind-tunnel arrangement, calling Happy Songs for Happy Zombies a relaxed effort is certainly a stretch, but the EP's dacha mentality endures: freedom, playfulness, childlike wonder—and most importantly, an appreciation of those rare moments where you’re not chasing time or fretting over its passage, but enjoying the time you do have with the people who matter. Fifteen minutes is no eternity, after all, but it’s ample time for an enjoyable escape—just like Happy Songs for Happy Zombies.
