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[one_half last=”yes”]ALLAH-LAS
Worship The Sun
Release-Date: 16.09.2014
Label: Innovative Leisure
Tracklist:
01. De Vida Voz
02. Had It All
03. Artifact
04. Ferus Gallery
05. Recurring
06. Nothing To Hide
07. Buffalo Nickel
08. Follow You Down
09. 501-415
10. Yemeni Jade
11. Worship The Sun
12. Better Than Mine
13. No Werewolf (Bonus Track)
14. Every Girl (Bonus Track)
NBHAP Rating: 4/5
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Maritime sway
Worship The Sun is a wonder of oceanic beauty, tickling the aquatic senses right from the beginning. Opening track De Vida Voz is a rollicking, gently rolling rowboat of a tune, licking gently at itself like waves lapping the shore. Shafts of sunlight filter through each track, warming them with summer right down to the toes. The singalong of Recurring is a smooth sailor’s shanty. In all, it’s not as openly derivative as its predecessor – the roar of the surf has eased to a comfortable Sunday swim, and wonderfully so.
Settling in
What’s immediately apparent about Worship The Sun is the way that the band have nestled together, sinking back into their sound like a favourite old striped deck chair. They’re leaving an imprint that’s unmistakable, slowing things down and smoothing them out in comparison to the lo-fi tumbles of the debut. Tracks like Follow You Down (for which a new video has just been released) contain everything we’ve come to expect from ALLAH-LAS – collective sighing harmonies, simple strutting drums – but in other places, the sound has developed into something altogether new. 501-415 is almost unrecognisable when taken as a stand-alone track, with its pressing, upbeat spine and vocalist switch-up; Nothing To Hide pushes things in the opposite direction with its mellow acoustic guitar and sliding tremolo accompaniment.
Delicacy, intricacy and sand mandalas
The instrumental work is more careful and considered this time around. It all interweaves with a gentle and elegant complexity that, while shaping and shifting like a sand mandala, promises a certain timelessness. Bonus track No Werewolf is the beautiful embodiment of this, ticking along gently like a wheel, as is the title track.
‘Worship The Sun‘ is a solar-sculpted shell, buffed by waves from decades past, leaving the taste of saltwater on the tongue and the memories of windy beach evenings rustling through the hair into the autumn months.
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