Guitaro

Let it be known that no matter how deeply electronics penetrate the world of music, there will always be a place for the guitar, especially big, loud, noisy guitars. This is precisely what Winnipeg's Guitaro have delivered on their self-released debut Futura Black - a dense, layered album of fuzzy guitars, dreamy vocals and mountains of reverb. It would be too easy to dismiss this as yet another tribute record to shoegazing British bands like My Bloody Valentine. In fact, they come across sounding more like Bailter Space, early Dandy Warhols, or even fellow Canadians Readymade. Originally from Abbotsford, BC, the members of Guitaro sure do like the distortion pedal, but the mixing of the album gives it a clean, soft effect. The two guitarists, Mark Wiebe and Heather Warkentin, also handle vocals together, creating a nice boy-girl melody overtop the thick hum. The album has an astonishingly polished sound, considering it was self-produced on home studio gear. Although most of Futura Black moves in relatively slow waves of sound, tracks like "Flying Cloud" or "Solar Scars" shows that they can brighten things up, especially when they add some acoustic guitar to the mix. Sure, Guitaro knows their way around guitar effects, but they also know how to write songs, which is precisely why it is such a pleasure to listen to Futura Black. For such a young band, this is a great accomplishment.