ALBUM REVIEW: ‘KILL YOUR MEMORY’ BY HEAVEN FOR REAL

With warm guitar driven melodies, a razor sharp bass, splashes of electronic effects and drums that pop like a balloon, Heaven For Real’s debut LP, Kill Your Memory, charms with an unflappable energy that only seems to deepen and grow.  The first full-length release from a band whose members are each already known to audiences for their work in other projects, brothers and songwriters Mark and Scott Grundy (Quaker Parents and Monomyth), Cheryl Hann (Old and Weird and Picnicface) and Nathan Doucet (ex-Crosss) carve out a sound that continually slips between worlds, merging the buoyant pop of “No One Knows Her” and “Smooth Ops,” with the stormy brooding of sharper-edged tracks like “I’m Sick.”  Although over the course of the record, the band never seems to stay in the sun or in the shade for too long.  Instead, they drift between different settings and moods with a natural, winning ease, giving Kill Your Memory a pace that allows each arrangement to go where it wants to when it wants to without losing momentum.

Right from the start, the vocal on album opener “Subliminal” counters a barbed wire melody, gently nudging each verse forward while casting a melancholy tone that looms overhead.  Yet almost immediately, what feels the most striking about the groups sound is the way in which they are so eager to change direction again and again, showering songs like “Kill Your Memory” and “Oasis Melting (Visitor on Vacation)” with subtle curveballs that quickly bulldoze one melody in favor of another.  Every time, each shift manages to feel just as unexpected and welcome, emerging as a crucial element that strengthens a relaxed, laidback style.  And by quietly shifting their shape several times before sliding into choruses that stick with you, Kill Your Memory can’t help but feel like a blissful blast of dreamy indie pop.

 

 

Kill Your Memory Is Available Now

 

Article: Caitlin Phillips

Cover Image: Evan Elliot

 

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