Welcome to ‘Hello New World’, the shimmering, smouldering indie-rock debut album from THE PLAYING FIELDS.
Pedal happy and given to trawling the stormy depths of thought, the London-based 5-piece use FX to create sonic scenes for one-act dramas. These are played out in the mind, the heart, the tortured soul
Opening track ‘Nonesuch Nameless’ combines fear of drowning with insomniac thoughts that explore the limbo between sleep and consciousness. Chorus-heavy guitars shimmer at a spaced-out tempo before a wall of rhythm FX cascades and diminishes into a single thread of feedback. The weight of it all is like being enveloped by darkness and the song is like a yawning chasm or rapidly widening black hole.
‘Sylvia Thompson’ is more optimistic. Bright acoustic chords, an easy 4/4 strumming dominates whilst blurred harmonies and a dash of violin combine to heighten the introspection. Again it feels like the song will swallow you whole, and the loose lead riffing is like a lifeline thrown, as the melancholy returns.
Huge chunks of this record define the band’s sound as being deeply rooted somewhere in a hazy cyberspace ambience where slowhand bass and shuffling brushes play their part over echoing, pulsating, reverberating guitar noise.
‘Drawings’ signals a brief departure from the album’s action-replay stoner pace. Military beats and a bouncing, bubbling bass riff instead provide a lively platform for the delirious vocal murmurings that float over the rhythm section drop-outs like a mist. Insanity soon reigns supreme once more, as everything from crashing cymbals to screaming backing vocals pitches into the confusion, blurring the boundaries in a pretty successful bid to defy gravity.
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I’m not a clairvoyant, but the songs are arranged in an order that reflects the succession of a setlist, perhaps reflecting an onstage strength. ‘Valley Of Salt’ is a hopeful acoustic number, soothed by the violin, but ‘Lights Out’ is raw, crystal clear slow motion with a heartbeat bass drum, and chiming percussion adding yet more layers without stifling the pulse.
Melodies are for the most part blurred or understated for full space-rock effect, but ‘Glass & Concrete’ is catchy, bright and pop-pretty – the age old 4/4 time signature is strictly adhered to with the oddball melody, carried mostly by the rattling guitars. Clanking percussion and a harmonica ease the heartfelt lyrics along and wouldn’t you know! Love is right at the centre of it all, as the song urges the listener to do some serious soul-mining.
Solid tunes? Yes, they are. For all that most of them are structurally unsafe and teetering on the brink of emotional collapse, we are reminded constantly that this is a journey of the mind, where actual events are immersed in a mist of feelings. Music where the action is replayed across the backs of eyelids like home-movies or a slide show on a projector.
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