Telescopes

Before My Bloody Valentine single-handedly bankrupted Creation Records, Alan McGee signed a band named the Telescopes, who rarely get mentioned with the rest of the label’s roster. Still making music 18 years after its formation, the band’s never found its prelapsarian form or following, so fittingly, they’ve included a pair of tracks on Altered Perception that were recorded during the "Creation years.” The dense shoegaze layers of "Sadness Pale” make up the only real song of the two, but duly convinces that the neo-fuzz rock of the Warlocks and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was shaped, in some part, by the ’Scopes. The rest of Altered Perception sounds more like A Storm in Heaven-era Verve, which makes up for its lack of originality through sheer auditory gratification.