Back in May, genre-defying Philly rock band So Totally put out their full length debut in the shape of…. The ever-industrious and supportive Citrus City Records liked it so much they decided to get in on the act, and now have a cassette version of the album for your listening pleasure.
The four-piece, aka Roya Weidman (guitar / vocals), Matt Arbiz (guitar / vocals), Joe McLaughlin (drums) and Ryan Wildsmith (bass), make indiosyncratic indie rock songs that refuse to be put into neatly labeled boxes. There are hints of spacious shoegaze and fuzzy indie pop and something darker and heavier at the heart of each song, blissful, reverb-soaked melodies jackknifing into walls of pure noise.
“love and pain are friends forever,” begins opening track ‘Sike’, which throws us straight into the unpredictable and slightly surreal world So Totally create on in the shape of…. There are knotty tangles of guitar and heart-quickening ’90s throwback sections and wide-open lulls that gather at the edges and go barreling into another assault of guitar and percussion.
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‘Attention’ has a weird woozy vibe, Weidman’s vocals stretched and distorted as she mumbles about fire and love and slow creeping feelings, opaque words that seem to conjure something tangible when searing guitar sets the whole thing alight in the final minute.
An indie pop song about astrological forces, ‘Pluto’ sees the band strip back some of the fuzz and reverb, at least initially, while ‘Mama’ tethers floaty vocals to shoegaze guitars and the romantic but doomed sensation of getting lost in the corridors of your mind. “Don’t talk me out of it,” Weidman sings near the end, “living in a world I’m dreaming,” in a line that illustrates perfectly the strange and beguiling world So Totally conjure.
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in the shape of… is out now and you can get it from the So Totally Bandcamp page and on cassette from Citrus City Records.
