Call them psychedelic rock. Call them shoegaze. Call them dream-pop. Call them what you want, just as long as you call The Shrubs your new favourite band. Those are all fairly tried and tested well-defined sounds, but what The Shrubs do so well is blend elements of all those sounds and the eras that they are garnered from to make something new and, more importantly, new for a new and discerning audience.
By taking the hippy vibes of a 1960s trip, the more ornate sounds of the late eighties, when the post-punk scene was busy birthing a new, heavier indie genre, and the more deft and delicate sound of the dream-pop idea that followed, there is a wonderful mix of associated sounds at work.
And for that reason, Echoes of a Dream wanders through some scintillating and ever-shifting sonic seasons. “Doesn’t Matter” has a nostalgic and hallucinogenic, pastoral pop vibe whilst “Can’t Last Forever” almost borders on the sort of territory that the likes of My Bloody Valentine would have been right at home in. Similarly, there are strange and spacious, warped folk such as “Cassette” at one extreme and the ambient drones of “Textures,” aptly named as it is more a collage of sonic textures than a song in the usual sense.
It is a mercurial album that plays by its own rules, even if it sometimes seems to be making those rules up as it goes along. However it gets there, the results are lovely, partially backwards glancing, often forward-thinking, sometimes generically categorizable, and more often perfect for the post-genre world.
One day, all albums will be made with such a spirit of adventure. Well, we can hope, at least.
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