Fleeting Joys - Occult Radiance (2009)

Genre : Indie,Shoegaze,Dream-Pop,Psychedelic HHMM!!
Myspace
Tracklist

01. You Are The Darkness
02. Cloudlike Mercury
03. Lights Underground
04. All Release
05. A Beautiful End
06. Closer To My World Without Pain
07. Don’t Go
08. Luminous LA
09. The Good Kind of Tomorrow
10. Into Sun & Dark
11. Destroyer

If you saw one of My Bloody Valentine’s reunion shows this year and thought to yourself "That was great. Now what?", Occult Radiance may be the perfect answer to your question. The album uses a sonic palette similar to the one Kevin Shields and co. employed on Loveless--evident on the guitar textures and breathy vocals buried low in the mix--but the band (a duo of husband and wife John and Rorika Loring) also attack their songs a little harder than MBV ever did, kind of like the grunge-friendly shoegaze of Swervedriver or Dinosaur Jr. OK, so Fleeting Joys rely heavily on their record collections for inspiration, but they're more than adept at using it as a launching pad for their own great songs and melodies. All eleven songs on the album are strong, but it's hard not to be particularly bowled over by the dreamy vocal coos mixed with viola-like guitar squalls on "Cloudlike Mercury" and the backwards vocals crossed with pounding drums on the chorus of "Closer to My World Without Pain," both of which are prime examples of the best that 21st century shoegazing has to offer. If you love shoegazing (and if you're still reading this, chances are very good that you do), then you'd be well advised into checking these guys out at their Myspace page for more info and sounds.