Playlouder - Music is the Network

Somewhere in deepest Southend-on-Sea, birthplace of The Horrors and Junkboy, lurk Beatglider. They’ve been around for over 10 years, though chances are you haven’t heard of them. Part of this time was spent languishing in musical limbo after being snapped up by West-coast hipsters Lakota records, producing an album, and seeing it slide into unreleased obscurity. Freed from these industry wranglings, they’re back with Witches.

It begins with the statement of intent that is The Rattlesnake, the band switching effortlessly from lush dream-pop to reflectively sparse lo-fi and back again. After that, the arresting Where Time Stands Still strangely sounds a bit like Don’t Panic by Coldplay, but minus the hubris and bombast that even then was growing in the band, and plus a wry observance that never seems to get flustered.

Elsewhere, Dark Dark Woods sees singer/guitarist Lee Hall doing his best Stephen Malkmus, but this is a folky Pavement lost somewhere, somewhere in a field in Hampshire, alright? Witches is 8.45 minutes of building fuzzy freak out, much like a skinny indie-band joining a druid camp and deciding to bust out a set in the middle of a midnight ritual, getting momentarily lost in the chaos of an hallucinatory trance state, then giving in to the encroaching Dionysian euphoria for a glorious organ led sing along.

As informed by the eclectic indie rock sound of early 90s America as they are the more nebulous swirlings of the shoegaze scene, Beatglider manage the neat trick of referencing a load of bands you (I) like but in a way that ultimately sounds like nothing but them and their quintessential Englishness. The album is dense, involving, and only really revealed itself to me on the fourth or so listen on an evening train journey, the whimsical pastoral mood on offer fitting perfectly with the transient and darkening landscape outside.

Its like a map of a place that no longer exists, some deserted petrol station ridden part of England built over the same land that was once home to markets and temples, stones and sacrifices. US alt-rock and 70s-style Wicker Man paganism do sound unlikely bedfellows, but slip between worlds with Beatglider and you may find it a beguiling combination.