Domiciles – This Is Not a Zen Garden
The Dunfermline-based quintet's debut outing sees them cement their heavily 90s influenced sound in solid fashion
A reasonable amount of hype has surrounded the Dunfermline shoegaze quintet Domiciles around the Scottish scene of late. The dedicated songwriting duo of Nick Young and Rory Cowieson have expertly crafted a dreamy sound both on record and in a live setting and, as a result, they've been picked up by Last Night from Glasgow for their debut release.
And indeed, This Is Not a Zen Garden is a solid debut from the young east coast band. While there's nothing extraordinary about this faithful recapturing of the early 90s shoegaze/psychedelic sound, there is a lot of potential for exponential growth on what Domiciles have started here. One imagines that live the experience is even fuller.
Lead single For a Reason is beautiful with its female-led vocals. The Rat brings in a motorik krautrock element to proceedings, while Want/Need washes over the listener in an extremely pleasing manner, owing much to the great My Bloody Valentine. Towards the album's climax, Domiciles adopt a heavier hitting style on Hyacinth and closer The Drug is Not Enough ends on a chilling sample of a life-support machine. The whole record is a dutiful and classic nod to the shoegaze genre, a great record to get lost in.
Listen to: For a Reason, The Rat, The Drug is Not Enough