- It’s funny how much territory the twilight world of dream pop can cover. With a sugary sweet melody, whispery voice and reverb out to forever you could probably have a shot at transforming any style of rock’n’roll into its quietly cooing shadow. I was reminded of this by Amaya Laucirica’s new record, her fourth (?) full-length, Rituals. You might remember her back in the day doing a fairly good Mazzy Star or Marissa Nadler impression. The Melbournian muso knows her southern gothic. She fused it into dream pop by way of dusty country music. Come 2018 and Laucirica is continuing the pivot she began on 2014’s Sway and it’s a whole other dream pop. The very sweetest strain you can imagine: Amaya’s voice melts into a Cocteau Twins tribute and her increasing penchant for electronics, especially the lush, new-wave synths, contributes heavily to the confected, frosting flavour.
Sugary as it may be I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a dream pop ode that doesn’t add a little bitter to the sweet and the songs here are all delicious, boiled lemon lollies. It’s easy to see why the singles have been so well received. As an album it's possible that Laucirica could’ve been a little more adventurous and diverse when putting together this bag of pick’n’mix and also that I should find a new metaphor for describing the record. The alt-synth-pop taps into a very specific glory of the ‘90s and barely shifts from it.
I found my ears becoming very hungry for variation and whipping around when things like that touch of guitar fuzz stipples the smooth facade of Sometimes. It made me wonder what the songs here would’ve been like if you stripped out the synth in favour of some thundering shoegaze guitar riffs. Similarly the mournful Endangered Man and its sarcastic croon to the chauvinists of the world is, ironically, a bit of an oasis in the midst of all the angelic pop, but… it does feel lonely there.
I don’t know if you’ll scoff at this, but I reckon I can still hear faint echoes of the Amaya Laucirica of old: a country twang here and a gothic chill there, but it’s as if those country elements have fused with the easy-going synth-pop to create the kind of cookie-cutter MOR backing band that I associate with and sometimes dread about dyed-in-the-wool country musos like KD Lang. Crazy? Way harsh? Well let me add insult to injury by saying that the smooth sweetness of Rituals will make great dinner-party music.
Woah, hold on there, I can behave: take the opposite approach and consume it song-by-song and I think you’ll also have a pretty great time. Back in 2014 Amaya described the evolution of her songcraft from something focused primarily on melody and lyrics to a bed of rhythm and harmony, where modular layers could be added as desired. To listen to a song like All Of Our Time that's a plan that's clearly worked; to listen to Rituals it seems like it worked too well. It is exceptionally devoid of class to finish by punning on the name of the record, but each time I listen to it, I don’t hear Rituals, I hear only one.
- Chris Cobcroft.