When Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang's debut album More Sad Hits was originally released in 1992, it shared a sonic aesthetic with the UK shoegaze scene that had been on slow burn for a number of years. As the former rhythm section of Galaxie 500, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, duo had already identified with the enigmatic sound of groups such as Cranes, Cocteau Twins, and Slowdive. More Sad Hits continued this trade of influences: blurring boundaries with guitars that sound like synths, keyboards that sound like guitars wired to a dozen glorious chorus pedals, and massive, lush song structures. Choosing More Sad Hits as a title could well be seen as a gently sarcastic nod to this period of shoegazing, which frequently featured bleak, melodramatic lyrics-- something Damon and Naomi also craft well, though their music at this time was more light-hearted in sound than some of their more goth-influenced contemporaries.
On first impressions the material on More Sad Hits can feel overly repetitive and somewhat passive compared to the extraordinary beauty of Galaxie 500's greatest moments, which makes it an easy album to navigate, but trickier to love immediately. It needs time. The vein of fragility that overrides the sound-- wistful vocal melodies, seemingly sloppy song structures-- is deceiving, because the songs gradually reveal themselves as multifaceted and deftly spun compositions that allow intrigue to flourish within even the most delicate passages. In songs such as "Laika" and "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" (a different version was originally released in 1991, on their only EP recorded under the short lived moniker Pierre Étoile) Yang's bass lines are mixed far below the happy-go-lucky jangle of Krukowski's rhythm guitar, yet it is these low, pondering tones that ground the song, telegraphing a sense of melancholy that will be comfortingly familiar to all fans of shoegaze and slowcore.
It seems odd that Damon and Naomi were met with a doubtful reception when they first started out on their own, following the departure of former Galaxie 500 vocalist Dean Wareham (who consequently went on to form Luna)-- a classic case of associating a band with its vocalist rather than recognizing the collective input of the musicians as a whole. More Sad Hits was originally intended as Damon and Naomi's swan song to music, and an album that they previously admitted they didn't think would ever get made. Sixteen years later they have released six more albums-- which includes some memorable live and recorded material with the great Japanese band Ghost. Remastered and repackaged, More Sad Hits takes Damon and Naomi back to the beginning and reignites the building blocks of a duo that continues to thrive.
