Ringo Deathstarr
Pure Mood (Reverb Appreciation Society)
To say Ringo Deathstarr are influenced by the fuzzed-out, droning sound of ‘90s shoegaze might be understating it. On the Texan three-piece’s fifth studio album, Pure Mood, the band seeks to reproduce the characteristic sound of bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, and largely succeeds in creating a reasonable contemporary facsimile.
However, instead of taking their influences and pushing them further, Ringo Deathstarr seem content to merely replicate them, in the hopes their young audience won’t be able to tell that their sound is not their own.
All the trademarks of the genre are here: the soft, sweetly sung lyrics; the ambient, effects-drenched guitars; the simplistic, plodding drums; the repetitive two-chord song structure. Certainly, Pure Mood offers few surprises.
The album peaks three songs in with “Stare at the Sun”, which features the familiar loudQUIETloud structure of amorphous droning punctuated a by big rock choruses. “Show Me the Truth of Your Love” opens with phased out guitars plucked from Sonic Youth’s “Teenage Daydream”, while Ringo Deathstarr cranks up the ‘90s to 11 on songs like “Heavy Metal Suicide”, “Big Bopper”, and “Never”.
That said, the band has to be commended for taking the very best elements of the classic shoegaze sound and recreating it perfectly. Pure Mood plays like a 20-year-old mix tape of forgotten origin: the songs are familiar enough to induce nostalgia but foreign enough that you can’t quite put your finger on them.
Rating out of 5: ★★★
