Routine Death - Parellel Universes

A duo of husband and wife separated by 7000 miles, Dustin Zozaya lives in Austin and Lisa in Gothenburg. They met on tour with Dustin playing in another Fuzz Club band, Holy Wave.

The lo-fi sound is derived from sending tracks backward and forwards over the internet and an app on Dustin's phone creates the drums, ethereal vocals Liz Fraser style, glitchy electronics and fuzzed out guitar, this is lo-fi taken to its extreme. It makes Guided By Voices sound like Dire straits, it’s f##ing brilliant. I’ve heard Stereolab and Broadcast mentioned and the band namechecks Reznor? Well, maybe Reznor but the rest no way, this has Suicide and Kevin Shields written all over it.

The album kicks off with an instrumental intro called 'The Anteroom' that sets the tone for the rest of the album, with an eerie drone and whaling vocals of 33 seconds that bleeds into the next song 'Life Inside a Vacuum' that starts with primitive drums, the layered overlapping sounds drift in and out with Lisa's vocals riding over the top. 'Star Alliance' up next with out of focus guitar and almost screeching vocals from Lisa with what sounds like kitchen utensils being hit in the background. 'Diamonds', the 4th track has Lisa singing softly over a gentle drum, bass, keyboard and strummed guitar, very nice.

The title track 'Parallel Universes' starts with the sound of a satellite hurtling through space till the dominant sound of keyboards ominous in their tone with the rest of the song doom-laden and lost in the depth of space. 'Charm Tooth' follows and the single taken off the album, one of the standout tracks for sure. 'Salvage Denim' has a great start to it with slowly building fuzzed out guitars and drums that suddenly explode into life with Lisa's vocals all coming in at once. 'The Impossibility of Paying our Debts' (tell me about it) is another great track, several gently strummed acoustic guitars blending nicely together with electronic drums and vocals coming in at around 30 seconds, if you must listen to one track first, let it be this one. 'Heart and Soul' has a definite The xx feel to it and along with 'Belong' concluding the album, I feel these are the less effective tracks on here.

Fans of MBV, Cocteau Twins, shoegaze and lo-fi noise, in general, this could be your album of the year.