Artist: Downstairs Left
Title: Waiting for the golden Age
Genre: Gothic / Darkwave / Electro
Release Date: 22nd October 2010
Label: Echozone
Album Review
Stamped by distinct musical back stories, DOWNSTAIRS LEFT was founded in 2007 and one year after the invariably praised EP ‘Nothing but Memories’, these days are faced with the release of the eagerly awaited debut album ‘Waiting for the golden Age’ of the three German-based musicians Hayle (Lyrics, Arrangements, Vocals), Eld (Guitars) and Sewin (Bass).
Already after the first run the album turns out to be a very uniform and atmospherically compacted piece of music. The emotional spectrum isn’t the widest one admittedly, because a carefully designed melancholy and a quiet gloom are flowing throughout the entire songs, but it’s pleasantly effective and confidently implemented. A really good example is the bonus-track (!) ‘Hope’, what brings us glittering acoustic guitars and ethereal keyboards, which seem to convoy the vocals a very long and hard road, flanked by resignation and bitter insight, what makes the title become sweetly ironic or even more desperate. Or the bitter-sweet ‘Smile’, in which a gentle piano and crystalline guitars cause fragility, that seems to be almost tangible. As well as the epical ‘Sunken Home’, with its acoustic complexity and melodic deepness, what illustrates the “sunken” in a very impressing way. And even if the main tenor of the album is placed in the reflective and voluptuous areas of the sentiment, there are to find some edgy and clamouring moments too, like in the song ‘Why’, where luminous keyboards are shimmering in the thicket of dark and distorted guitars and psychedelic melodies are clearing space for stylistic inconsistencies and interspersed samplings.
But even when this languorous melancholy gains power and intensity with every run, there is one thing above all, that seems to be boon and bane at the same time. And this is the (at first sight positively) musical variety. It’s hard to name a stylistic device you can’t find within these 13 songs. Acoustic guitars, electronically samples and loops, monotonously rattling drums, spherical choirs and wafting strings, gentle piano-sounds and distorted stringed instruments… and this audible wealth makes the album sounds riven and torn up now and then, too uncertain about the own home. Tracks like ‘My Angel’, ‘Desperation Song’ or the NO COMMENT cover ‘Typewritten Life’ are brilliantly arranged songs and could radiate a staggering authenticity and depth if… yes, if too much electronics and artificiality wouldn’t thwart the spryness and the warmth of the music. And so I think DOWNSTAIRS LEFT are at their best with those songs, which follow a consistent way, like the great ‘Today’, or the acoustic version of ‘The Rose’, which are pleasantly stand out with their emotional impact and their believability.
Conclusion: ‘Waiting for the golden Age’ is an album that impressively argues the musical skills of the band and delights by a convincingly atmospheric and emotional thickness. Only the lurching balance of the acoustic and electronic stylistic devices disturbs the agreeable flow of melancholy and majestic wistfulness. But to all, who just want to close the eyes for being caught up in a sweet and warm melancholy I only can urgently entrust this piece of autumn-music….
Tracklist
01. My Angel
02. Why
03. If You are gone
04. Desperation Song
05. Today
06. Smile
07. Sunken Home
08. Pictures of Past
09. Hands of Destiny
10. Dusty dead Moon
11. The Rose (Acoustic Version)
12. Typewritten Life (Remix)
13. Hope
Line-up
Hayle – Vocals, Lyrics, Programming, Sampling
Eld – Lead Guitars
Sewin – Bass
Website
http://www.myspace.com/downstairsleft
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 6
Sound: 9
Total: 7.5 / 10
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