The Fauns - The Fauns

The Fauns, it seems, have spent the last decade sharing a hazy nuzzle with the early 1990s shoegazing scene, as their eponymous debut traces the history of their heroes with academic accuracy, meticulously massaging every sinew, from the effect-centric wall of sound of My Bloody Valentine to the supernal swooning of the Cocteau Twins. Saving the best to almost last, penultimate track 1991 finds Alison Garner’s vocals drifting in the ether of a pitch-perfect shoegazeing loop, holding its head high against the greats who influenced it. Though even from the first esoteric strains of opener Lovestruck, it’s clear that The Fauns mimicry is of the highest class. Their referencing of the 'gaze may be unabashedly forthright, however this debut proves to be, quite simply, a blissed-out revisit of what is for so many, the true, defining sound of the 90s. [Paul Neeson]