Simmer - Paper Prisms

Sounding like they’ve swiped all of the effects pedals ever kicked, stamped on, punished and broken by My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Swervedriver and Catherine Wheel in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Simmer make big, bubbling, feedback-saturated melodic noise that shakes your bones as it shimmers brainward. It’s massive and mesmerising. Short dreamscapes deserve headphones intimacy, especially should they improve the chance of getting a fully audible blast of the lyrics’ seemingly isolated angst…on second thoughts, it’s difficult to assess how knowing a line like “Sometimes I feel like I’m losing touch with you, but I don’t think about you anymore” will actually affect anyone’s appreciation of what is essentially musical gold, albeit heavily pawned treasure. Interestingly, this debut LP has been dubbed ‘ambient punk’. Eh? And, we’re told, it marks Simmer’s evolution to a more ‘progressive’ act. Whatever, it’s out on Dog Knights Productions so it’s essentially attitude and guitars to the fore – and that helps in understanding the tag. Phew. Familiar? Yes, to the extent the 34.6 minutes of Paper Prisms is almost seamless: beware of being dragged in to this reassuring wall of reverberation, the atmospheric repetition that threatens obsession… Never lose that feeling.