They Are Gutting a Body of Water – LOTTO

Shoegaze revivalists They Are Gutting a Body of Water have spent nearly a decade taking the genre’s combination of surging power and spectral weightlessness and warping it into something off-kilter and seasick. LOTTO by contrast is comparatively straightforward. Most of its runtime is a no-frills, well-executed take on the genre, with just a touch of the dirty jean grandeur of indie-rock vets like Built to Spill or Lift to Experience. They’re a really powerful unit, but you get the sense they could knock these tunes out in their sleep, and it feels like a lot of what they’re capable of is missing; slow crostic feels like the directionless bar band vamping of a world where the old lads want to be in Swervedriver rather than Oasis.

The record is at its best when it retains the sense of adventure that has defined their earlier work; american food pads like a gormless dog and retains some of their best fried electronics sensibilities, while the strangulated lead line of trainers starts plainly enough until their instincts wrench it into something queasily unfamiliar. Throughout LOTTO you find yourself wishing it’s an instinct they’d indulged more.

Listen to: american food, trainers, rl stine