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CD
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EDDA 079CD
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This is the third album by Lake Ruth and their first since Birds Of America in 2018, with Allison explaining that the album took a long time to write particularly with the interruption of the pandemic and then two of the members making an interstate jump. Working with melodies first, Allison knew she wanted a celestial and cinematic narrative to this album, from there threading and interweaving three key strands of influence into the stratosphere. This means that the tracks generate a constellation of tales with many of the lyrics inspired by the voices and tales on the sorrowful podcast about Heaven's Gate (the cult where the victims fatally believed they would graduate to an alien spacecraft behind the Hale-Bopp Comet). Second and third to this universe in terms of thematic inspiration are the science fiction novel Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and the 1920 print Angelus Novus by Paul Klee, in particular Walter Benjamin's interpretation of this "angel of history" regarding the unceasing historical cycle of despair. Visually the themes are reflected in the cover of the album. Hawking Radiation, meanwhile, is a title that Hewson wrote referring to the energy emitted by a black hole after it consumes something. The black hole is a symbol of the cult but those lost to it are not lost forever, living on as memory. Contrary to what might be deemed overwhelming subjects are Allison's "hot-knife-through-butter' seraphic vocals, her melancholic intonation trading blushes with the guitars' ripple of baroque pop. There is a lightness of touch in the skittering drums too, some touches more familiar to fans of '60s bossa nova. All three members of Lake Ruth have been in other groups -- Allison Brice in Eighteenth Day Of May and The Silver Abduction; Hewson Chen in The New Lines and Matt Schulz in Holy Fuck. It's an effervescent combination that waltzes and flashes like perplexing trails in the night sky. For fans of: United States Of America, Broadcast, Saint Etienne, The Left Banke.
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