The Laurels – ‘Turn On Your Mind’

The Laurels – ‘Turn On Your Mind’ (mp3)

We’ve all heard shoegaze before. If not in the early 90s, then at least via reissues or the ‘nu-gaze’ craze that is kinda still lingering. Like all good Arts students, it’s pretty much all I listened to in the second year of my undergrad. And even though I dig the new shoegaze stuff coming out, I sometimes kinda think, ‘why bother when the genre peaked twenty years ago?’ Then other times, I kinda think, ‘I’m sick of listening to Loveless – I want something that is new but sounds like Loveless.’ It’s on those days that the persistence of shoegaze as a genre is totally justified.

Which leads me to The Laurels. They’re a shoegaze band c. 1990. They sort of disregard music post Ride/MBV/JAMC etc, but then they’re not really trying to reinvent the wheel/pedalboard. They’re clearly just trying to do what I outlined above – make music that is new but sounds like Loveless. And they do a pretty good job. It’s a bit easier to digest than some of shoegaze’s more introverted works, but they write solid songs and drape them in the appropriate swirling effects. It totally listenable and damn enjoyable.

www.myspace.com/thelaurels