Forest

“They attack their guitars with a degree of vigour, but overall they exude a listless kind of energy. Call it slacker pop (or noise pop, or grunge pop, or dream pop): hazy, dazed melodies played fast and forlorn by teenagers in love with bands such as Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, Sonic Youth and Ride. At Forest’s best, their music is a beautiful blur (although they don’t sound much like Blur), based on the belief that the production should resemble a non-toxic fog. “It’s a false idea that every song should be crystal clear,” the members contend, going on to create, over two EPs, little monuments to that credo.

Their first EP, Sweetcure, came out in May, but already it sounds like a warm-up for the new one. They have made several sonic advances, even if the result is, paradoxically, a less muffled context for their deliberately muddy sound. You’ll immediately hear the difference when you play the first EP’s opening track, Good People, next to the first song from their new Caramel Arms EP, Coaster. They’re both terrifically riffy, sad but speedy strumathons, but the latter is a level above. Their notion of “songs” – which in Forest’s case comprise two or three chords, repeated over and over, and juxtaposed to maximum harmonic effect – was in place from the start. All the hurting, hurtling ones are modelled on Dinosaur Jr’s Freak Scene, an early apotheosis of the form. Forest will bring back memories of 1991 in a Proustian rush – although the members appear to have conflated Amherst/Seattle and London/the Thames Valley.” - The Guardian