true widow: as high as the highest heavens & from the center to the circumference of the earth

While the summer traditionally favours jangling, sun-kissed guitar sounds and saccharine melodies, True Widow have arrived just in time to offer a respite. Surf-pop thrives around this time of the year, and rightly so; it’s perfect for those blue-skies-and-golden-beach days. But there’s a dark side to the season, too, and D.H. Phillips (ex-Slowride, guitar), Nikki Estill (bass) and Slim TX (drums) honour a doomy style that veers off into those shadier realms. Theirs is a shoegaze-cum-stoner rock sound – or ‘stonegaze’ as it has been coined – that speaks more of the searing desert or prairie than the sea.

Formed in 2007, the Dallas-based trio produced an exhilarating eponymous debut for local label End Sounds the following year, and this elaborately titled follow-up for Kemado Records keeps that record’s slowcore burning bright with thick distortion, steady riffs and dreamy, solemn vocals. The effect is meditative and narcotic, building up to a cathartic peak on ‘Wither’ and dragged out, grinding chords on ‘NH’. There’s a low-snaking punk drawl to Phillips’ vocals, but it’s the tracks sung by Estill, such as the impossibly haunting opener ‘Jackyl’ and lead single ‘Skull Eyes’, that leave a lasting, shimmering visage. Despite the breadth of their tempos, the songs of As High As The Highest Heavens… offer a glorious direct hit.

[Kemado; May 2, 2011]

Written by: Charlotte Richardson Andrews

Tags: as high as the highest heavens, from the center to the circumference of the earth, true widow

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 10:25 am and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.