Silk Daisys by Silk Daisys

Silk Daisys
Silk Daisys
Independent

The Silk Daisys were waiting for this very moment. An amp glows, guitars churn, and the world transforms into a glorious wall of dimensional sound. James Abercrombie has spent a decade building up an arsenal of lush songs through Soundcloud. His partner Karla Jean Davis rounds out the duo and a debut album was born under the moon of a mirrorball shooting out shoegaze bliss. If you want to use an album as an example of what a dream pop/shoegaze album should sound like, this is it.

Davis’s voice is as hypnotizing as it is light and oftentimes atmospheric in an airy way. A song like “That Was Yesterday” gives a certain youthfulness found in early Saint Etienne albums while Abercrombie’s carefree strums whisk away with time. It’s a beautiful song to get lost in. Their strength lies within subtle delicacies of unadulterated pop constructions blurred by obscurity and subtle effects.

Layering reverb over shimmering melodies, “Kiss Me Like You Mean It” is hauntingly erotic with guitars sensually swirling around her lip-service. She slows down and gets lost in the melancholia of “Someday.” There is an echoed longing where Abercrombie taps into his inner Johnny Marr.

There’s a lot of substance on this debut. Twelve songs of dainty dream pop, fueled by ‘90s fuzz rock (“Honeymilk” could easily fall into a Jesus and Mary Chain or Love and Rockets B-side buzz while “Everybody Wants to Be My Baby” is a love affair with the Drop Nineteens). And the intro “It’s A Laugh” is pure bliss.

A song like “Little Galaxy” stops me in my tracks and sends shivers down my spine. The way the music spirals into Davis’s ethereal demeanor. It’s a lullaby at the core, falling deep into a lush dreamscape, as emotion overtakes imagination.

I absolutely adore this album from front to back. They perfectly preserve the emotions of shoegaze and proudly contort pop aesthetics into their own creative little world that bursts forth with songs that dig in deep and tell a personal story as intently as we can connect to them.