Sore Eros – Know Touching

There’s something altogether endearing about Know Touching; a lo-fi, pretty sort of mess by Connecticut’s Sore Eros. Opener Shake The Walls bristles along in ghostly fashion, beautiful in its simplicity and setting the tone for a largely intimate record which revels in its scruffy attire. The DIY template is consistent throughout the album’s 12 songs, with acoustic guitars at times delicately picked, and at others deliberately played with a nervous twang.

Percussion is always on the tinny side (when not completely distorted) while the keys are sprawling but dirty. Frontman Robert Robinson has a similar timid whine to Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donohue, or ex-Grandaddy man Jason Lytle, and so perhaps it’s no coincidence that songs like Pull My Hair or Yellow Dress sound so reminiscent of those bands. But for all the homage and deliberate disorder, there’s nothing slack about the songwriting chops on show from this psychedelic troupe. [Alan Souter]