My Review: Loom - Eternal Aphelium E.P.

Loom - Eternal Aphelium E.P.

The din of silence makes souls eager for warmth self-propelled, altering the direction and permanence of their needs, not allowing themselves to tergiversate, not making the best use of time.

Sweden's Loom take the sledge and head north, into the space that makes their minds a dream-embracing glow, carrying the suitcase of reality tightly in their arms and uvulas.

In all this, the new E.P. shows some changes, surprises that stun and make listening a celestial crossing swollen with visions and perceptions that warm the heart, fighting the cold and anger of living today.

Monika Axelsson returns as the band's lead vocalist, while Evelina Nicklasson has decided to take a break. In addition, in one track, we also get to hear Roland Klein singing along with guitarist Fredrik Axelsson.

We witness a mutation, an elaborate thoughtfulness aimed at giving the compositions and the sound the possibility of becoming celestial matter, a close relative of dreams, in an embrace that allows the Nordic line-up to express a seductive, bewitching talent, generous above all in making slower rhythms a stylistic mooring close to Post-Rock meteors.  But it remains essential, for the sake of the record, to recognise that shoegaze is approached here with great exploratory exigency, almost as if the four had studied possible settlements and graceful, but effective, improvements.

Succeeding.

Four new paintings and that Aphelium III released in January of this year. The territory on which the writing and expressive skills that coined an embrace out of a wicker rocking chair, with a small flask of whiskey, rests is a dune full of snow that acts as a springboard to the sky. The guitars, in this winter jewel, find a way to space out in powerful and rarefied crossovers with the other instruments, concretely engaging the possibility of compacting the various expressive individualities. As for the vocalists, there emerges a solidarity, a support, a winking, a sweet intimacy that dresses the listening with vibrant emotions, showing, compared to the rest of the group's discography, a greater and more pronounced propensity to grant them the stage, on which the light of approval establishes a generous, benevolent contact of care and sustenance.  Capable of reproducing the evident structure of the musical genre that has found in Slowdive and Low (because, really, we are witnessing the mixture of a work that includes Shoegaze, Post-Rock and Slowcore) the major point of reference in these five songs, these artists, through Henrik Viberg's careful production and also their own, paint the light effects with a frame that makes everything ethereal, as if the sensation of entering directly into their compositional process became real. One reaches across mental spaces, feelings, in a feast where sounds hold both joy and pain, making one's breath mute but filled with great vibrations.

Eternal Aphelium becomes, thus, an E.P. of concessions, a spectacular vessel between solid qualities of the past that do not disappear, but are eager to accommodate a mixture that makes the quartet pregnant, to make Loom's art the possibility of acquiring thrills and reflections.

Clouds as landing guitars, drumming as thunder in a hormonal and exploratory state and the bass as a distributor of wisdom and support, and finally a keyboard that closes the path of expression to consolidate the evocative power. 

 Song by Song

1 - Slowmotion

The emotion, quickest to manifest itself, comes from the opener track, a boulder of rock rising into the air, with shoegaze guitars towering, to then allow Monika's suave voice to caress our eyes and reach the refrain, which condenses the whole, transporting bodies to the house of dreams. Like a circular merry-go-round, the perimeter of sound grasps more than thirty years of this musical genre, polishing the medals of valour won...

2 - My Melancholy Girl 

A guitar arpeggio and a subtle keyboard force the rhythm to slow down, but the beat becomes tachycardic: first Fredrik's voice and then Monika's are the ground where sweet tears are born. A reasoned chaos, kept at bay with class, in a sunny lullaby that expresses the talent of a song as a probe, to walk in the sky, with the nakedness of sound to warm the footsteps of a poetic music as never before

3 - Trapdor

Powerful, as in numerous episodes of Adorable and Ferment's Catherine Wheel, the third track sees Fredrik and Roland singing together, amidst psychedelic shrapnel and drumming that defies the patience of the sleeping sky. Monika's countermelody also arrives in the refrain, in a compact, lunar, sweetly neurotic combo, making us dance, with the bass pushing its pulse to make it all a complex amplexus of colours and vibrations.  

4 - Aphelium III

The single that anticipated E.P. is a drug that fills the mind with visions, with the scratchy guitar but also capable of building an almost ferocious melody, while the two voices stroll in unison to create a poignant melodic line. Sparks that generate recalls, fascinations, resulting in an addiction that makes for repeated and enjoyable listening...

5 - Proximity

The farewell is spectacular: Monika leaves her angelic voice on the lanes of a simple but generous arpeggio of approaches, with the bass gliding towards the chest, then leading us into the wind, a spiritual ascent towards an eternity that could really have this jewel as its soundtrack. The keyboard here is more incisive as far as it maintains its minimalism, but those few notes immerse us in the great light that the whole produces, giving the whole beauty and cuddling, to make the whole become a perfect fade-out, a slow procession with the garment of generosity to wrap a majestic work...

Out on 8th Mrach 2024

Fredrik Axelsson - Guitars, keyboards, vocals

Roland Klein - Basses, programming and backing vocals 

Eddie Wilmin - Keyboard

Monika Axelsson - Vocals

Recorded by Loom

Produced by Henrik Viberg and Loom

Mixed and Mastered by Henrik Viberg

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

7th March 2024