For better or worse, Belong has moved away from the droning, beautiful, ambient fuzz to a more shoegazer-friendly, detached sound. A departure for a band that used to thrive on holding treated guitar washes for minutes at a time. This actually has chord progressions, vocals, bass, and drum machines. MBV done by lo-fi, noisy knob-twiddling ambient texture-philes. Everything is still treated, distorted, and muffled past recognition, so it still has a lovely, hazy, druggy feel. Will actually fit on your indie rock show, I swear. I’m not even filing it under experimental. I probably sound like a broken record here, but it really owes a lot to early Cure, MBV, and JAMC, but you should also pay attention if you like Growing, Atlas Sound, and dare I say Washed Out?

*1. Kind of gothy, swirly shoegaze, dreamy, distant vocals, bass is upbeat and driving. (5:27)
2. Simplistic drum machine, lo-fi’d out guitar, lush, synthy, dreamy chorus. (4:14)
**3. Cure circa Faith. Eyeliner-laced synths, relatively repetitive drum machine, vocals saturated and treated to the depths of the ocean, blurry-eyed goth. (I think the Cure homage is even apparent from the track title, “A Walk.”) (5:02)
*4. Driving bass, sort of a noisester’s take on 80s synth pop – hooks are not exactly commercial radio-friendly. (4:29)
*5. Dreamy intro, drumless, hazy, cavernous organ, some bass keeping time. If you liked old Belong this may be the easiest to swallow of this album. (4:39)
6. Another steady, lo-fi drum beat, dreamy, sustained synth textures; hypnotic and faded. (5:29)
7. Longing, kind of like an unfulfilled Valentine’s Day song, major whooshing textures. (4:34)
8. Pounding, sequenced bass, this is a lo-fi Loveless outtake. (4:08)
**9. Really pretty progression drowning in the Belong treatment, which isn’t such a bad thing. Dreamy, lovely, hello YIF. (3:20)