Brief Candles

Back in 2006, Milwaukee’s Brief Candles released the excellent They Live We Sleep, an album that perfectly captured the band’s way with lush guitarscapes and airy vocals reminiscent of Ride, Swervedriver, and the ’80s and ’90s 4AD Records scene. Five long years later, 2011’s Fractured Days picked up where They Live left off. Practiced in My Bloody Valentine’s bewitching way of creating music so layered that it nearly evaporates off into contradictory airy and aggressive beauty, the album might be considered a weighty affair with its melting guitars, heart-heavy bass lines, and swirling atmospherics. It’s an earful without a ton of breathing room, yet the music’s honest appeal never lets it sink too heavily or take on any shade of gratuitous moodiness.

Updated 06/27/2012