Stream: Wall of Death, ‘For a Lover’

Kevin Bronson on January 15th, 2016

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Five-year-old Parisian trio Wall of Death sound far more alive that their dire name suggests. They are the latest signing to uber-hip L.A. label Innovative Leisure and their sound is psychedelic … which sounds a lot sexier when rendered in their native tongue: psychédélique. Their album, “Loveland,” produced by IL’s Hanni El Khatib and engineered by Jonny Bell (of Crystal Antlers) and Sonny DiPerri (Animal Collective, Portugal The Man), is absent the miasmic bombast of many purveyors of psych-rock; this is much more no-wasted-notes psych. The finery is the work of Gabriel Matringe, whom the bio tells us is an ex-cello player, Brice Borredon and Adam Ghoubali. The Mellotron-drenched single “For a Lover” starts with a chord progression that launched a thousand ships, recalling the mild hallucinogenics of the Beatles and their acolytes. The title track introduces itself with aching, echoing vocals before beating its chest in Floydian majesty and tickling the spine with a keyboard overture. The album has plenty of songs without “love” in their titles; it will be released on IL on Jan. 29.

||| Stream: “For a Lover” and Loveland”