WL//WH Track Of The Day : THE FINAL SOUND “Desolation”

Developed around the chance meeting of brothers Pablo Zauzich (drums) and Gonzalo Zauzich (guitars and synths) with Diego Vilche (vocals and bass), the Brooklyn, New York-based unit of South American origin, The Final Sound, have released their number “III” EP.

As the Cure inspired band name suggests, the trio craft “classic 80s Post-Punk, infusing modern and Retro 80s vibes”.  An atmospheric, reflective and crystalline sound, earnest and immersive, with a profound and tormented emotive heft, wreathed in vibrant shoegaze sheens.

The opening sways on an evocative, dreamy and melancholic mood, somehow recollecting nostalgic melodic strains of Don Henley‘s “The Boys Of Summer”, weaving an obsessive, glistening liquid guitar tapestry to somberly engulf lost, ghostly vocals, agonizing over being pulled down into the darkest night of desolation.

Amid gloominess, afflictions, and malaise, the EP keeps winding between the boundless at times claustrophobic, desolate expanses of shadows and lights, driven by stark hypnotic drum patterns, cloaked in wintry, rarefied and misty droning synths along with painful, passionate guitar lines and hopeless spectral breathes in “Dark Gathering”, while in the next, more urgent track, downtrodden vocals emerge from the darkest liminal realm into a “Cold” futureless existence under concrete skies, stirred by deep and moody bass pulses and a relentless guitar that ripples on a tensile surface, etching sharp and desperate plaintive melodies into the soul.

The closing “En la Ciudad de la Furia” revolves into heartfelt, spirited and emotionally ridden vocal vibes with a sparkling cover of an iconic Argentine New Wave classic from the late ’80s by the legendary Soda Stereo fronted by Gustavo Cerati, a striking depiction of the city of Buenos Aires that captures the transition between night and day, chaos and respite.