It’s no overstatement to say that ‘Bones In The Soil, Rust In The Oil’, the debut album of LA four piece Pretend, is one of our favourite albums in quite a while (or one of this reviewers’, at least). Delicate, sprawling, musically exquisite, this is a record that’s near impossible to categorise, a haunting, jarring mix of alt-rock instrumentation, post-rock dynamics, and the unbound creativity of jazz that simply has to be heard. Weighing in at over seventy minutes, Pretend have made no commercial concessions here, their songs, such as the otherworldly ‘Guided Spirits – Guided Souls’ uplifting ‘Legs To Walk Us, To Drop Us,’ and stripped back ‘Alive In The Tone’, proving utterly spellbinding on first listen, and second, and third, and...
Pretend’s dreamy, mesmeric sound, complete with whispered, minimalistic vocals, will likely prove an acquired taste, but those who’ve enjoyed recent releases from Shelsmusic should definitely make picking this up a priority. Originally released last year, ‘Bones...’ worldwide re-release is something to celebrate; we can only hope that more adventurous listeners will fall under its beguiling charms... This is like the soundtrack to the best art movie never made, or a doomed romance set under languorous gray clouds. Beautifully imperfect, this is a great debut by anyone’s estimation, and hails a fascinating new voice in the worldwide avant-garde.
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