WL//WH Track Of Day LAST TOURIST
Leeds, UK based shoegaze 3-piece, LAST TOURIST, made up of John Wellby (guitar, vocals, programming), Adam Simpson (synths, programming, backing vocals), and Jason Booth (bass guitar, bass synth), return with a brand new single “Black Raven (Always Lost)”, as the last track mixed by John Pennington (New Order, Happy Mondays, Royksopp) and mastered by Simon Scott (Slowdive), the latter also hosted on drums duty.
A relentlessly emotional-laden throwback to early Jesus and Mary Chain that builds hypnotic and introspective moods, heavy melancholy and fearful pain, wrapped in a stroking and seductive haze of pleasantly abrasive sheets rife with enveloping voluptuous feedback, permeated by languorous and somber melodies and vaguely ecstatic lysergic vibes, as a heartfelt homage to equally familiar and timeless nostalgic aural sensations, albeit not disdaining some modern flairs.
Poetic lyrics maintain a state of lost consciousness, confusion, and imprisonment at the hands of contemporary dystopic distractions, worries, and fears.
Steady syncopated drum beats arouse a bleak buzzing bassline that keeps a relentless dark tone, pulsing constantly to be slowly torn apart by dense layers of fuzz and distortion to spur pensive moods of isolation and fear, while glowing synth swathes flow wistfully in the background atop soft yet high-strung doleful male vocal’s unlaced looming anxiety and dread to float desperately in a numb deluge of heady reverb.
Although getting lost in cozy enshrouding fuzzy washes and sad nostalgic harmonies is always extremely damn pleasant and somehow needed for me, even after so many years, I hope I will take longer next time to seize the influences, it would be a strong sign of a talented band developing their own distinctive sound. Having said that, Last Tourist has drawn up another pretty neat release of its kind.
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