-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: Pia Fraus ALBUM...: Evening Colours GENRE...: Indie STYLE...: Shoegaze, Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Rock YEAR....: 2023 LABEL...: SekSound COUNTRY.: Estonia PLACE...: Tallinn, Harju maakond FORMED..: 1998 ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0 BITRATE.: 267 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 11 SIZE....: 79.73 MB URL..: http://piafraus.bandcamp.com - TRACKLIST 1 French Exit 3:46 2 Fog On The Hills 3:47 3 Evening Colours 3:55 4 Sunny Afternoon 3:16 5 Who's The Envelope-Man? 4:10 6 Regret Everything 3:52 7 Confidential Information 3:19 8 Another Artichoke 3:27 9 Cloud Winterland 4:37 10 We Melt 3:40 11 Lost In Nights 3:42 Total Playtime: 41:31 Marking their twenty-fifth anniversary as a band, Estonian outfit Pia Fraus end a short hiatus with their seventh studio album. 'Evening Colours' slips right back into things straight away, blending their dream-pop/shoegaze aesthetic with some beautiful synths and electronics. Featuring string arrangements from The High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan. * Long-running Estonian band Pia Fraus have been playing a distinctive brand of driving indie pop mixed with shoegaze dreaminess since the late '90s. After celebrating more than two decades in the game by revisiting early material on 2021's Now You Know It Still Feels the Same, Evening Colours is their first batch of fresh songs since 2020's Empty Parks. For this album, Pia Fraus worked with two notable figures who played a major influence on the band's sound. The record's cover art, a colorful, abstract beach scene, was designed by Annabel Wright of Scottish legends the Pastels, and four songs feature string arrangements by Sean O'Hagan (the High Llamas, Microdisney). The sweeping strings and sweetly melancholic vocal harmonies of "Sunny Afternoon" feel like an instant flashback to O'Hagan's extensive work with Stereolab throughout the '90s and 2000s, though its particular breeziness is all Pia Fraus' own. Another standout, "Fog on the Hills," has a rushing rhythm and subtle layers of levitating synths, adding a cosmic atmosphere to lyrics of intense longing and desire. The band creatively incorporate a heavy Krautrock influence into "Regret Everything," which kicks off with a rocket-powered motorik rhythm, then continues with unexpected melodic shifts. "Confidential Information" has touches of reverb-y surf guitars and lounge vibes but otherwise focuses on an urgent sense of heartache. The arrangement and sound design on "Another Artichoke" is bewildering, with shooting star-like horns and cloudy synth textures floating around insistent vocals ("Please hold my hand at least one more year"). O'Hagan's lush strings return on the final two songs, the slightly proggy "We Melt" and the mellower "Lost in Nights," which seems to fuse traces of shoegaze and '70s soul. Pia Fraus have had an impressive track record for over 20 years, but Evening Colours stands out as one of their more inventive, inspired efforts. * About: Pia Fraus is a Estonian dream-pop band formed in 1998. They have released six studio albums and a handful of EPs on various record labels worldwide. Their sound is a mixture of dream-pop, subtle shoegaze, and beautiful electronica, topped off with shimmering layered vocalisation. -=- SHGZ -=- -=-=-==-=-=- Shoegaze is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the late 80s. The genre is very difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and textural distortion that create a tranquil, opaque feeling. ---==--==---