The
Crevice obscurology continues to murmur along with
Think of Pleasant Things, another album that somehow puts a sense of Texas -- or at least the American West, thanks to Mark Semmes' lap steel performances -- into rather alien realms. Semmes' guitar actually begins the whole album -- consisting of four different parts to the same title track -- on a calm, sweetly beautiful note, though the moody tones and muffled, distant wails that so often characterize the group's music surround it like a shroud. That said,
Think of Pleasant Things lives up to its title to a great extent by being a little less unnerving, a little more accessible in a strange way -- the resonances of darker ambient approaches from the likes of
Lull are still present, but tempered. Robert Jimenez's violin playing is a notable contributor to this new mood, adding elegance and a swirling richness to the steady guitar notes at many points. It also makes sense that the title comes from some sample of what sounds like a '40s or '50s pop chorus -- cloying, gloopy, but out of one context and into another, more than a little disturbed. It's not that there isn't any flat-out doom or gloom on the album, though, as the distorted bass swirl that introduces the final part makes clear, leading into a chilly, distant tone echoing away into a last strange zone/freakout and samplefest. If anything there's also a slight though not specific parallel to the work of that other shadowy collective
Godspeed You Black Emperor!, with the second part introducing a strident, persistent bass note that ratchets up the tension as the arrangement swirls both darkly and with punch. There's no explosion of dramatic drumming or structured arrangements, though --
Crevice follows its own particular muse, still. ~ Ned Raggett