Rei⋆Clone - Wet
(2016 Smoked Cheese Records)
Wet is as packed with woolen textures and reverb-soaked hooks as a log of Nutraloaf is dense in essential vitamins. Akin to those tiny dollar store capsules that shed their plastic shells and expand into primary-colored sponge dinosaurs when submerged in water, Rei⋆Clone's latest EP is a glass vial filled with a highly unstable compound of visceral fuzz-rock guitaristry, murky vocal harmonies and gusts of violin that resemble distant whale songs. It's a coupling of My Bloody Valentine's muggy atmosphere and the gale-force aggression of Perfect Pussy - an aesthetic match made in shoegaze heaven, but one that produces cyclonic results. Opener "Ready To Die" is an immediate torrent of cymbal splashes and trebly chords pouring down on your windshield, the air a pea soup green cloud of cirrostratic strings and gloomy feedback. Standout "Cat Planet Suicide" is perhaps the most memorably anthemic cut of the bunch, drowning woozy vocals in undulating waves of Nickelodeon slime, though this a record best consumed in a single sitting to cushion the impact of its condensed dream-pop taste. When the Third Impact strikes and you're forced to head to your underground bunker, bring a few nonperishable cans of powdered Rei⋆Clone along with you. Few records pack as much dreaminess into as little time as Wet does, and its timelessly washed-out tone earns it an expiration date that's eons into the future.
