Every indie-style is coming back these retrospective days, including nineties shoegaze in acts like Asobi Seksu (QRO live review) & eighties John Hughes-style alternative in bands like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (QRO live review), and in Los Angeles’ Letting Up Despite Great Faults, you’ve got a nice share of both. On Untogether, Mike Lee’s project worms its way into your heart.
From Pains-like opener “Visions” to soft, slow finish “On Your Mark”, Untogether is strongest when Letting Up doesn’t let up on the fuzz – otherwise, it becomes simpler shoegaze in songs like “Scratch”, “Take My Jacket, Pauline”, and “Breaking”. But the push added to “Postcard” and “Numbered Days”, or the keys on “Postcard” and the following “Bulletproof Girl”, take the revival of sounds into something more. It all comes together best probably on “Details of My World”, with just the right amount of fuzz and this record’s other hallmark, sweetness.
With this their second album, it might be too late for Letting Up Despite Great Faults to be the ‘next big thing’ (hell, having a second song means that…), but they’re nicely familiar while also being nicely original.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults – Details of My World
