Valleys
Are You Going To Stand There And Talk Weird All Night?
Kanine Records
Street: 04.30
Valleys = Slowdive + Merchandise + Young Galaxy
The songs on this debut album beautifully capture that feeling its lengthy title evokes. On the album, Valleys reinterprets the rich heritage of melancholic shoegaze with their own vision. This Montreal-based duo, Marc St. Louis and Matilda Perks, culminated their early collaborations with …Weird All Night, an album informed by great personal loss. Perks and St. Louis trade lead vocals throughout, against backdrops of devastating lyrics of pain and heartbreak, and lush, engulfing electronics. Perks’s voice is an angelic foil to St. Louis’ glum baritone. Alec Dippie, of the seminal British post-punk band The Monochrome Set, recorded and co-produced the album, but its direction comes from sadness. The track “Exing Everything” takes a progression from one of Sigur Rós’ sadder songs, “Samskeyti,” while the opening track, “Micromoving,” casts a serene spell to initiate the album to follow.  I’m a few hundred listens shy of calling it the next Souvlaki, but I’m not stopping anytime soon.