ALBUM REVIEW: Thousand Shadows Vol.2 – You Said Strange
When Giverny shoegaze rabble YOU SAID STRANGE released Thousand Shadows Vol.1 at the end of 2021, they revealed an accomplished and catchy sound that fused all of the best parts of THE DANDY WARHOLS and PULP with a combination of grit and intelligence that is rarely done to such a solid degree. Now they return with Thousand Shadows Vol.2, but it seems that they missed the memo on what worked so well last time.
Opening with No Way Out, things start well enough. Hector Riggi’s bright, jangling guitar lines are paired with Eliot Carriere’s saccharine, wistful vocals which effortlessly float into a festival-ready chorus. But as the repetitive melodies roll into The Raft (No Way In), the record starts to unfurl. Not quite different enough to the first track but not similar enough to be lumped into one song, you end up with a laborious blancmange that occupies nearly nine minutes of this album. It’s an issue though that largely lays with the production choice to place these two songs first; instead they would have been perhaps better served as bookends, where the latter could feel more like a reprise and the album could feel like more of a full circle thing.
Latest single (Song For A) Wasted Land toes an odd line between feeling desperately familiar and yet strangely unique, its MADNESS-esque saxophone accompanies a jaunty melody that would feel at home in a funhouse. Again though, YOU SAID STRANGE displays their chorus-writing prowess and do manage to worm their way into your psyche with a hook you’ll be mindlessly singing for hours.
Things do improve later on as they mirror the Vol.1 interlude Talking To The Rats with the similarly named but more melancholy Rats. It’s a delicate, piano-led instrumental that breaks up these eight tracks and offers a different look at what YOU SAID STRANGE is capable of, in all its vaudeville-meets-rock-opera splendor. Trade Your Soul follows in stark contrast, recycling the sparkling pop-gaze melodies of those opening tracks and adds a deep rooted grit through tension drones that sound like they’ve come from the 28 Days Later soundtrack and a snarled spoken-style performance that draws you into the mystery.
Sadly, What A Day closes this album feeling like a lamentation of ‘oh, what a day’ moreso than a celebratory ‘huzzah, what a day!’. Dreary, long-winded and not as grand as it tries to be, this offers little when compared to the prog-heavy Landed which closed Vol.1, and somehow feels far longer even though it is a full two minutes shorter than its precursor. A suitable final nail in the coffin then of an album that so nearly gets it right but just doesn’t.
Ultimately, Thousand Shadows Vol.2 is just not as good as Vol.1 and the band’s decision to release their sophomore record as two releases results in the full picture feeling bloated and rehashed. There are some novel ideas but they never land as well as they ought to. YOU SAID STRANGE is an intriguing band and one that has the ability to do great things. Just not here so much.
Rating: 5/10
Thousand Shadows Vol.2 is out now via EXAG’ Records / Le Cépe Records.
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