This is a relatively recent small record store which sells exclusively vinyl (who has said record stores were dead?) and organizes free in-store performances the way Amoeba records and Origami records do it. I have noticed a lot of metal in their collection and they may effectively have specialized in heavy intense-sounding music. The bands announced for their future in-store performances are unknown to me (except OFF!), but I decided to check out the band Whirl, which did a set in the store this afternoon.
The music of the sextet from North California is very densely composed with four super loud buzzing guitars, which fill all the space without anything left at all for something else except the drum beat still well present. Through this mountain of sound, I could only guess the melody, which floated above the constant buzzing, intermittently making me aware it was still there, but I just gave up about the spacey lyrics, the vocals were so buried that I didn’t even know what the voice of the female singer sounded like.
I can understand that this is probably not what they have in mind, their noise shoegaze pop is there to express something more physically than lyrically (I don’t know, may be the lyrics are great too, but they were inaudible).
Some songs gave me the impression of a battle against the powerfulness of some invisible fierce and forceful wind generated by their guitars. The beat of their songs was usually slow, and the motif of the songs heavily repetitive, making the music more and more loaded as it progressed, and, depending on the way you felt it, digging or climbing their colossal songs, with a lot of efforts but without making a move, showing they have carefully chosen their moniker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmIOcbY0xQ0