Album review: Timelost – Gushing Interest

The combination of woozy melody and rumbling heft that defines Timelost’s sound have inspired the Philadelphia quartet to describe themselves as “grungegaze”. As a tag, it’s weirdly unattractive but pretty accurate, this second album drifting back to a period when cult U.S. bands like Hum and Drop Nineteens absorbed influences from both post-Nirvana alt.rock and the UK’s shoegaze scene.

Opener and single Better Than Bedbugs finds Timelost at their most immediate, almost Weezer-esque in its bouncing rhythm and geeky sense of fun. It’s hard to square this tune’s slacker vibes with the somewhat heavier CV of certain band members. Most notably, co-founder Grzesiek Czalpa also plays in Woe, but traces of that band’s blackened metal bombast are thin on the ground here.

That’s not to say that Timelost don’t crush in their own way, with spiralling lead guitar and dreamy vocals making T.K.O. the emotionally charged pick of the six tunes on offer. Similarly, the gloomy but driving mixture of dream-pop and distortion on Your Ghost Will Be Happy will pack instant appeal for fans of better-known kindred spirits like NOTHING or even Deafheaven.

Slipping further back than their signature ‘90s-flavoured sound, Timelost close proceedings with a cover of Love My Way, a 1982 single by British band The Psychedelic Furs which has enjoyed a long afterlife on various film soundtracks. Its breezy catchiness makes for a contrast to the occasional meandering elsewhere; if the latter admittedly comes with the sonic territory, it can’t help but stand out on a record which lasts less than half an hour. However, there’s still plenty here to pique the interest of fans of hazily melancholic alternative rock.

Verdict: 3/5

For Fans Of: Hum, Narrow Head, NOTHING

Gushing Interest is released on February 19 via Church Road

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