BlueScreen

Only six songs on this one and that's a darn shame. Any fans of the Cocteau Twins and the Sundays will eat this one up and go back for seconds. A four-piece unit from Toronto, BlueScreen ambitiously pours out some of the most beautiful atmospheric pop, like liquid silver. They combine crunchy guitars, ethereal vocals and all sorts of effects to create one great swirling mass of sound. Each song ebbs and flows in perfect rhythm, at some points evoking a sense of the world in slow motion. The songs themselves are well written, both musically and lyrically, and all parts come together to create one complete whole. Each song is very different from each other and it's hard to pick out a favourite from the six. "Blue" and "Araby" stand out as having the ability to stay with you long after the CD is finished, with Delphine Roussel's vocals chiming in like a beautiful bell. This band, despite the more mellow ambient edge, still has a definite pop approach, with huge washes of sound culminating in crescendos of percussion placed at just the right points. I once described the Cocteau Twins as the musical equivalent of walking through a cotton candy-coloured snowstorm. This too comes pretty close. A thoroughly terrific listen, with my only complaint being the CD ends too quickly.