On their third album and first for Sub Pop Records, the four collaborators from New York known as LVL UP illustrate just how well several musicians with different influences can come together to produce spectacular, diverse sounds. While the outfit is often classified under the indie\/alternative umbrella, Return To Love <\/i>has much more to offer, and they do so in some of the most unexpected ways. <\/p>\n
\u201cHidden Driver\u201d leads off with a speedy, lo-fi acoustic strummer that builds into a louder, pulsating rocker not unlike Sebadoh flexing their muscles. \u201cBlur\u201d follows and is a plugged in affair with influences like Pavement. Next up, the more subdued \u201cShe Sustains Us\u201d is a cautious, thoughtful tune that would make Doug Martsch (Built To Spill) proud.<\/p>\n
The middle of the album offers us longer, expansive songs of fuzzy, noisy rock, with the post-punk traces of \u201cSpirit Was\u201d matched with the ambient sounds and the soft versus loud dynamics of \u201cPain.\u201d \u201cThe Closing Door\u201d then maxes out the fuzz with quirky, anthemic, and dense genius. <\/p>\n
The back half of the album is full of surprises. For instance, the sludgey, doom metal opening of \u201cFive Men On The Ridge\u201d abruptly shifts to gentle waters before the Dinosaur Jr.-esque move into a throbbing rocker. This transitions into the softest moment on the album, the soothing, meditative \u201cCut From The Vine.\u201d \u201cI\u201d is the most rowdy tune here, full of melody and harmony, and often sounds like a lost track from Built To Spill\u2019s Keep It Like A Secret,<\/i> which of course means it’s one of the best songs in recent history. The paradigm then shifts again to the seven-minute droning of \u201cNaked In The River With The Creator,\u201d which mixes a key-heavy spiritual haze into jagged, booming experimentalism. <\/p>\n
Rumor has it that LVL UP may have broken up had Sub Pop not offered to put this album out. Let’s put this on a long list of things we need to thank Sub Pop for, as the feedback, distortion, and multiple singers (among all the other pros already listed) make this an essential rock adventure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10029],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-45023","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lvl-up","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45023"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45023"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}