Album: The Velvet Crush

Soft Sounds, Action Musik

Recent months have seen a welter of reissues of soft-rock rarities from Sixties symphonic troubadours such as Sandy Salisbury and Curt Boettcher, which, along with the burgeoning popularity of Scandinavian retro-softies such as Motorpsycho and The Soundtrack of Our Lives, suggests that this once-reviled form of wimpish psychedelia may be about due a revival. Despite having considered abandoning this project during its recording, Rhode Island duo The Velvet Crush may be unwitting beneficiaries of any soft-rock revival, Soft Sounds being the most engaging example of the form to appear in some time. Its brevity – a perfect 34 minutes – and the way the 12 tracks are divided into sides one and two mark the album out as the throwback product of a vinyl sensibility, while the sleek harmonies, jangly guitars and subtle smears of pedal steel inescapably recall the early years of David Geffen's Asylum label. The Box Tops' road anthem "Rollin' in my Sleep", for instance, is done in beautifully rendered Eagles country-pop style, while a cover of Scott Walker's "Duchess" profits from the contrast between its "Lay Lady Lay" arrangement of organ, pedal steel and cowbell, and the harsher sentiments behind lines such as "Your look of loss when you're coming across/ Makes me feel like a thief when you're bleeding". Songwriter Paul Chastain's own songs are just as emotionally testing, cumulatively presenting a sad portrait of separation. Particularly impressive is "Vanishing Point", which deals tenderly with the way events and memories slip away into the past as we stumble into the future, "hearing the echoes further away". Recommended.