A joint review of our recent remastered reissue CDs on Projekt was posted by Mike Schiller to the Pop Matters website. It’s rather negative towards Idylls, alas, but below are some of the more positive quotes:
You just don’t see bands like this anymore. The whole shoegazing, atmospheric, easy-listening-gothic darkwavy movement has all but disappeared into the night, morphing neatly and quietly into the less laboriously-described genres of folk, rock, and ambient music. In the ’90s you could hardly throw a stone without pelting one of these bands in the forehead…
Love Spirals Downwards always tended a little more toward the “artistic” side of the spectrum of acts in this style. Rather than find the dance beat that would hook the Love Spirals Downwards name into the mainstream, primary instrumentalist Ryan Lum went for a more minimalist approach, more akin to the lighter side of such darkwave stalwarts as Cocteau Twins, Love is Colder than Death, and Projekt labelmate Black Tape for a Blue Girl. There was always just enough percussion to push a song along, and even then, only when that percussion was necessary. Suzanne Perry took a plaintive approach to the Lisa Gerrard-esque habit of nonsense syllables mixed with the occasional intelligible lyric, coming off as ethereal, yet human. Combined, the two made some of the prettiest, if not necessarily the most engaging music in the genre.
Idylls was a spotty, getting-the-feet-wet sort of release that never quite carried the consistency or the emotional weight that an album in this style needs… A “live” take of “Scatter January” is beautiful and studio quality, while the version of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” taken from an early-’90s compilation is very much what the album version should have been, with an extended coda featuring some beautiful, clean electric guitar work and further vocals. Interestingly enough, the three bonus tracks on Idylls quite outshine the album proper. Nowhere is this more apparent than with “Mediterranea”, the lone new studio track, a song that might have fit in quite well with the songs of Ardor.
Ardor, then, is the album on which Love Spirals Downwards found its sound, a mix of gently strummed guitars and Perry’s medieval-leaning vocal stylings that just seem to mesh together… one would be hard-pressed to say that they ever made anything more affecting than the best moments of Ardor. Opener “Will You Fade” starts off pretty and turns into something great via a latter half that features a wash of shoegazing guitars and soaring vocal lines. The lovely “Write in Water” is utterly gorgeous, and basically serves as the template for every song of its type that would appear for the rest of the decade. Love Spirals Downwards’ first attempt at recording with a guest artist is here as well, as Jennifer Wilde’s performances on “Depression Glass” and “Sunset Bell” suggest that the duo might even be better with a more direct, less floaty sound from the vocals.
It’s Ardor that should really get the attention when examining this pair of albums. Despite the fact that Lum and Perry might not have had the success of a few of their contemporaries, Ardor is proof enough that they had plenty to offer, with moments on par with the best the genre has to offer.
