Rev Magnetic – Versus Universe

Rock Action

As far as I am concerned, Luke Sutherland has been away from producing his own music for too long now. After helping to create the blood-rush post-rock of Long Fin Killie to the dreamy trip-hop of Bows and the pan-European Music AM, he wrote some delightful novels and then disappeared into the welcoming bosom of Mogwai. Until now…

The début album of four-piece Rev Magnetic finds Luke once again brimming with romantic ideas and helped by a handful of sympathetic musical friends, recording a work of deliciously sparkling and diverse vignettes. Based around the life of a girl abandoned by her parents who goes missing in space, the songs tell the tale of her gradual immersion in a life of music, each song constantly expanding her personal universe. It is the kind of romantically mythical yet melancholy idea we might expect from Luke, and one to which Rev Magnetic do their best to conjure a suitably accompanying soundworld.

Each of Luke’s musical projects would be different enough from the previous to mark a good progression, but they were always tied together by his particular vocal delivery; at times confessional and at others wounded, the personal content or oblique imagery often half-whispered in your ear, as if the story was for you and you alone. I am pleased to say that things haven’t changed in that respect and musically it is far more of a sonic maelstrom in places.

The term shoegaze has become pejorative over the years; but everybody understands its meaning, whether they appreciate the sound or not. The title track which opens the album has that shimmering burst of guitar that is almost the antithesis of Luke’s breathy delivery. The slow-moving wall of sound, almost bursting with distortion, is like a shield for his delivery, infused with the melancholy of the protagonist. In comparison, Audrey Bizouerne‘s voice  is lovely and bright, and the chorus of voices that appear on “At The Mercy Of Fabulous Thoughts” are a further juxtaposition appearing like stars in the night sky.

The bass is monstrous on “Daughter Of Astronauts”, but the slow dreamlike patter and Luke’s faltering voice as he delivers the line “All I wanted was to stay with you” cause many different sensations in just the one song. Each instrument seems to embody a different feeling, and when a skyscraping guitar solo erupts towards the end of the track, it is rather unexpected. The auto-tuned voice is destroyed with heavy, clumsy beats on “Sunny Windy Winter Morning”, while the abandoned child’s escape to the US is a vibrant jet blast of a song, every corner of the track filled with sound, Luke’s hesitant whisper sitting at its core.

Interestingly though, no matter what musical tricks the band plays, it can not offset the sense of abandonment; the swelling of trumpet and violin on “Woodland Sorority Carwash” or even the industrial beats and digital manipulation of “Yonder”. And it just doesn’t sound like anybody else; the heartbreaking spoken word “A Minotaur’s Mass”, with its sylvan violin echo and sparkling distance is shouldered aside unceremoniously by the effects-laden distortion and auto-tuned phasing of “Gloaming”. He still breaks your heart as the lines “My parents ignored me” and “I hunger for their love” can’t do anything to disguise the loneliness that is at the heart of the whole album, and by the time the almost Caribbean-feeling final track “Palaces” arrives, we have been swept away by the emotion of the whole suite.

The tragic yet joyful line “the beacon in my perpetual evening” hints at something positive in the future, and perhaps it is up to us to decide if the kinetic handclaps and romantically inclined spoken-word denouement lead to a positive end for our heroine. Either way, the journey is well worth the heartbreak, and I am just pleased to have Luke Sutherland back again. Here’s to the next adventure.

-Mr Olivetti-