Picking up on the ear-catching, edgy segmented rhythms of the breakbeat wave on
Flux,
Love Spirals Downward updates their sound, leaving the creative core intact. It's all about texture in this multi-layered album of
Suzanne Perry's atmospheric vocals, brightly strummed acoustic guitar, and urgent electro-beats. While
Perry's long phrasing meets the moderate rhythms to imply a midpoint, ocean coast sonic waves ebb and flow over the listener intoxicatingly. Indeed,
"Sound of Waves" is the name of one of these undulating tracks. Swirling and merging, this duo's techno-psychedelic (psychedelia implied by the gentle nod of the content without considering their titular acronym) ballads of love lost or failed (
"Psyche," "By Your Side," and
"I'll Always Love You") are constructed in a way that owes as much to the accessibility of pop as it does to current forms of electronica. ~ Tom Schulte
