For all the affection that early 90s shoegaze gets across the blogosphere, most of that attention is given to a very small number of bands. Namely, this attention is given to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive (I’ve recently noticed that Ride, the third member of the longstanding Shoegaze Trinity, has been ignored or maligned by modern listeners).
And while these two powerhouses may be the most indelible members of the Scene that Celebrates Itself, there’s a lot of gold to glean in the history of the genre. Loveless aside, there are plenty of bands who offered the lush atmospheres and, otherworldly, dare I say spooky, melodies that are synonymous with shoegaze.
Take for instance, London fourpiece Lush and their debut album Spooky, which is both of those things.
It’s an odd thing for the name of a band and the title of the album to be the perfect descriptor of that album, but it’s hard to describe Spooky by Lush more accurately than that it is both lush and spooky. And fresh off a fair amount of hype following the mini-LP Scar and Gala, a compilation of their early releases, Lush had a lot to prove with their first proper full length. And prove it they did.
Guitars jangle through a haze of reverb and modulation so thick that it’s hard to tell what’s a guitar and what’s a synthesizer (the credits list no keyboards though). The drums drive so steadily that sometimes you’d be sure it was a drum machine. The bass meanders up and down the scale like a ghost wandering through walls. And over this mystical sonic fog floats the twin voices of co-lead vocalists Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson, who deliver almost every lyric together. All of this is masterful combined by producer and Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie, who injects a heaping dose of his own project’s otherworldly dreaminess.
But what really makes Spooky a special album is the songwriting. While many shoegaze bands are just burying lazy vocals with fuzzy guitars and calling it a day, the songs on here are great pop songs, the jubilant hooks unobscured by the atmospheric haze. Even as lush and spooky as these songs are, they are always perfectly constructed and just so catchy.
The opening couplet of sets the mood perfectly. “Stray” opens with an ominous, almost warlike march before launching into the dark and driving “Nothing Natural.” The mournful, minor melodies immediately declare that they’re taking things a little more seriously here than on their earlier EPs. It’s not all dark and dour though—the aptly titled third track “Tiny Smiles” brings some sunny jubilance.
The rest of the album shifts between these opposing moods, often within the same song. “Covert” opens with a major key guitar line then shifts to a minor when the vocals come in. “For Love” flips it with a dark, aggressive intro giving way to bright verses.
But for the most part, these songs are just good. “Superblast!” is a fast, punky number that somehow counteracts the lackadaisicalness of shoegaze without sounding out of place. “Untogether” is an irresistible bouncy pop number that is just waiting to be put on a seminal indie film. “Take” is practically heavy, offering up the blueprint for nugaze bands like Whirr and Nothing. “Laura” rides a syncopated bass line that feels like it was borrowed from the Smiths. Closer “Monochrome” is an epic, moody ballad that sounds reminiscent of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees while still sounding like no one like Lush.
Who’s to say why this album hasn’t been remembered alongside Loveless, Souvlaki Space Station, and Nowhere as an absolutely essential album in the genre? While bands like Cocteau Twins and Chapterhouse are filling Instagrams and getting vinyl reissues left and right, I had to track down a copy of this record from Lithuania. The lack of attention is, in my humble opinion, absolutely criminal. Hopefully, the upcoming album from Miki’s new band Piroshka should be a hit and bring her old band—and this album—the attention it needs. In the meantime, I’ll just be keeping my Lithuanian copy on repeat.