Violens are adept at shape-shifting appropriation. The NYC band's lead singer, Jorge Elbrecht, was a founding member of the now-dormant "art collective" Lansing-Dreiden, who last signed off full-length-wise with 2006's murky, equally new wave and OMD-worshipping The Dividing Island. Violens' 2010 debut, Amoral, ditched the shadows and fog for pop-rock bounce and Boo Radleys impressions that were impressively faithful, if not totally memorable. For the band's follow-up, True, they've moved to perpetually in-vogue indie pop revivalist mecca Slumberland. In general, Elbrecht and his latest project haven't strayed too far from the same sonic mission announced circa L-D's excellent The Dividing Island cut "Two Extremes": All sonic roads still end shortly before Bill Clinton first took residence in the White House, the previous Echo and the Bunnymen comparisons joined here by takes on the jangly roar of first-wave shoegazers like Pale Saints, Slowdive, and Ride.
Those slight changes in genre-based sound are the results of True being Violens' first true full-band effort, as the record's writing sessions began while the band's current lineup was touring behind Amoral. This turns out to be a boon, since True sounds more melodically pretty and dewy-eyed than its predecessor. If you're the ceiling-staring type that gets chills from just a few seconds of chiming guitar, or maybe a snatch of achingly sung vocals, this record might be just your thing. Undoubtedly, these simple pleasures seem all the more pleasurable because the bar's been lowered over the past few years when it comes to "this kind of stuff," which gives True a whiff of ephemerality; on the other hand, "enjoy it while you can" doesn't seem like particularly terrible advice as long as you can, well, enjoy it.
When I say "this kind of stuff," I'm referring to the current and ongoing guitar-indie embrace of shoegaze-derived texture and feel, which wasn't very present in the sparkling clarity that Amoral wore like the prettiest nail polish. On True, that's been replaced by the kind of production touches you'd expect from a Slumberland release-- reverb, distanced vocals, guitars coated in a warm glow. Over the past few years, those things have become synonymous with representing guitar-focused indie music that's tagged as "lo-fi," but there's not much about True that sounds home-recorded or shabby. As he did on Amoral, Elbrecht handled the production duties on True, and his able ear makes True less a lo-fi shoegaze-revivalist LP and more of a studio professional's idea of what a lo-fi shoegaze-revivalist LP would sound like. It's the small details, like the howling wind and bird cries that open "Sariza Spring" or the exquisitely applied layers of echo on closer "So Hard to See", that mark this album as a headphones listen.
Here's why I hold some reservation against Violens: True shows that Elbrecht and his band are more than capable of recreating moments from the past in a way that is reverent and still provides pleasure to those who grew up listening to those past sounds and relative newbies alike. But I'm not so sure that they're good at doing much more than that. Violens seem to have hit their sweet spot here, though, so hopefully they'll continue drilling in the same place instead of looking for more history that's ripe for plundering.
