The rare supergroup that uses the talents of all their members to their fullest,
Piroshka changes gears effortlessly on their second album,
Love Drips and Gathers. Instead of delivering more of the bitingly political post-punk outbursts that made
Brickbat a firecracker of a debut album (as well as a continuation of
Lush and
Elastica's latter days), this time the band opts for more-personal songwriting and a softer sound that draws on dream pop, shoegaze, post-rock, and art-pop. Though
Moose's K.J. McKillop and
Modern English's Mick Conroy take over creative control from
Miki Berenyi and
Justin Welch,
Love Drips and Gathers is as much on theme as
Brickbat was. As its Dylan Thomas-inspired title suggests, the album traces the ebb and flow of emotions, relationships, and memories of loved ones past and present. At times,
Piroshka looks back with a soft-focus lens: "Hastings," an expansive and touching tribute to McKillop's late mother, is lush in a way not usually associated with
Berenyi, with a flugelhorn solo that sets it aloft. At other times, the band's hindsight is crystal clear: "Scratching at the Lid" explores McKillop's relationship with his father, setting some of the album's most barbed lyrics ("What will they say as they put you in the ground?") to some of the most irresistibly sugary dream pop that any of
Piroshka's members have concocted -- which is saying something. However, even when the band revisits the sounds many of their fans love most, they add new twists instead of retreading. Named for and dedicated to late 4AD art director Vaughn Oliver, "V.O."'s heavy, shimmering psych-gaze feels like a fitting but not predictable homage to the man responsible for much of the label's beautifully cryptic imagery, while "Loveable"'s hints of exotica contrast its down-to-earth look at love. As it comes to a close,
Love Drips and Gathers only grows more adventurous, with a pair of
Stereolab-like excursions that add a cosmic depth to the softly drifting mood on which the album began. A frequently lovely album born out of introspection and loss,
Love Drips and Gathers captures the complex ways life and music change while upholding
Piroshka's musical legacy. ~ Heather Phares