After the absolutely noteworthy first two tracks released last year, to suggest Last Tourist as worthy successors of Leeds‘ impressive underground music legacy, four-piece band, started in 2017 as a duo by John Wellby (guitar, vocals, programming) and Adam Simpson (synths, programming, backing vocals), joined later by Jason Booth (bass guitar, bass synth) and by the late recruit, a Londoner by way of San Francisco, Andrea Parra (drums, backing vocals), have slowly developed a blurred and moody an 80s inspired, synth-laden sonic cauldron defined by a post-punk attitude, where darkwave, shoegaze, electronica and psychedelia mesh together without defined boundaries.
The brand new single, “Cave in the Hills”, relying on the renowned co-production of John Pennington (New Order, Happy Mondays, Royksopp) and finely mastered by Simon Scott (Slowdive), if at first glance it seems to lose the urgency and immediacy of the debut, lowering the pace, albeit not the potency, indeed gaining in depth, intrigue, and mystery by teetering on the trance-inducing minimalism of the reiteration of deceptively simple tuneful and hypnotic melodies, with a ritual gait of simmering intensity, echoing a detuned version of the Suicide, combined with the vibrant mystic devotional quality of Spiritualized.
Hovering between day and night, wrapped in the dim light that slopes towards the darkness, a glaring icy synth line pulses forsaken, underpinned by soft and hypnotic, tambourine-tinged, tinny rhythmic patterns, steadily pierced through and lit by reverb-dusted glistening tremolo guitar swathes in a swelling emotional slow-burning surge, at the same time embracing and heart-rending, with dazzling cathartic outpourings of stunned awe embodiment, expounded on by ecstatic subdued male vocals, haloed by light euphoric female hums, veering into the mystical waves of fearful self-enlightenment.
One of those uncommon tunes where few notes are enough to make them feel closely familiar.
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