This piece of vinyl’s been sat around my flat for some time now: shrink-wrapped and waiting for my needle to fall into its groove. And I’m pleased I finally found the time to spend with this uplifting, guitar-oriented piece of joy. In parts, the record sounds a little like Bibio, but without the heavy use of electronica. Unlike Bibio, there’s no apparent, conscious focus on the vintage, but the band come through riding on similar waves of ethereal wash. If I was prone to hyperbole (and I sometimes am), I’d say Revelations was a drop dead gorgeous record filled with some of the politest instrumentals you could wish to meet on a Saturday night. If this record was a girl, you’d want to hold her hand, buy her cake, and pray she never left your sight.
That’s not to say this is a record that is full of blithe charm set to sweep you off your feet. There’s just enough implied malice tattooed beneath the skin to prevent Revelations from becoming a sensual exercise in schmaltz. This isn’t the soundtrack to a modern day Woody Allen film. Elements of Daphne Oram style electronics are splashed across its lilting, psych-inspired canvas which serve to make it a far more loved-up and intelligently designed experience compared to anything Allen’s put out in decades.
But let’s get one thing straight: Revelations is not an album filled with wild, earth shattering muscular contractions of noise (à la Mogwai). Rather, the album is a well-mannered concoction of beauty and civility underpinned by restrained menace. The fact that it is borne from Sweden is perhaps telling.
