She Talks Silence: Holy Hands, Holy Voices

The core of this new song sees She Talks Silence in pretty familiar territory, with half-murmured, half-sung vocals and fuzzy guitars over a tinny, motorik drum machine — there’s something fanatical, almost hardcore in the band’s devotion to mid. It’s embroidered with some neat touches though, such as the rather affecting moment when Minami starts reaching for notes right on the border of her vocal range and her voice trails away to a near whisper, or the overlapping semi-harmonies that close out the song. They even flirt with guitar solos at a couple of points, albeit with characteristically fuzzed-out minimalism. As the video helpfully informs us, this is mellow noise, and if it’s a sound that hasn’t moved on notably from where the band were on last year’s Some Small Gifts mini album, their songwriting is still clearly holding up admirably.