Album Review: Piroshka - "Love Drips and Gathers"

 

Regarded as a shoegazing supergroup of sorts, Piroshka were formed by Miki Berenyi (ex-Lush), Justin Welch (ex-Elastica) and KJ and Mick Conroy (both ex-Moose) a few years ago with their debut album Brickbat being an enjoyably immediate collection of agit-pop which sounded like the missing link between mid to late period Lush and Elastica's first album.

With their second album, Love Drips And Gathers though, the band have clearly decided to go off on a different route with a return to their shoegazing roots. Hence opening track Hastings is a gentle ode to the seaside and the security of relationships with chiming guitars and glacial synths and The Knife Thrower's Daughter is a stripped back wistful look at childhood before lead-off single Scratching At The Lid takes the tempo up a notch into more familiar sounding early '90s territory but giving the shoegazing vibes of old a more modern dream-pop sheen.

It's the fact that Piroshka are willing to add some new tricks to their repertoire rather than just clinging to their shoegazing security blanket that makes Love Drips And Gathers a good album - the almost Indian sounding drums and sitar-like guitar on Loveable take the song off somewhere that you maybe weren't expecting while the icy strings on VO see it almost going into film soundtrack territory (for some reason I'm reminded a bit of Mansun's The Chad Who Loved Me here as well which is no bad thing).

Wanderlust is maybe the track here that is most clearly identifiable with Piroshka's various band members' pasts, sounding like a minor key rewrite of Lush's For Love while Echo Loco could have come straight out of 1992 with its chiming distorted guitars, glockenspiel and floating vocals but is no worse for it. The languid Familiar sees the group drifting into a sleepy electronica landscape before the menacing We Told You signs things off well with its pounding bass and drums and sinister whispered/chanted vocals.

Love Drips And Gathers is a solid second album from Piroshka. Hand on heart, I do slightly prefer its predecessor which was maybe a bit more immediate but I totally understand why they've decided to take a road off to explore new more ambitious territories rather than letting the grass grow under their feet. Maybe more one for shoegazing and dream-pop aficionados than those who were drawn to the spiky new wave stylings of their debut, it's nevertheless the sound of a group acquitting themselves well. 

Bandcamp Link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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