Review: Craft Spells - Idle Labor

Artist: Craft Spells
Title: Idle Labor
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Captured Tracks
Genre: Chill- / New wave
Rating: 74 / 100

When first noticing the existence of this band, I was almost ready to not like it, partially synth-based music has just never really been my cup of tea, probably the reason why I've almost ignored all music made in the 80's except for Joy Division, New Order and the whole early shoegaze movement. Still, I tried to listen to this as objectively as I could, because a band like Craft Spells really doesn't deserve it to receive a negative review for my dislike of 80's inspired partially synth-based music.

When saying 80's inspired, I really mean 80's inspired, this could with ease be called a kind of new wave revival, but of course dressed in a modern musical clothing. The music is for a reasonable part, let's say 50 percent, electronic (assuming the drums aren't acoustic, but you never know with those modern producers). The slightly dreamy melodies are brought to you by a mix of guitars, mostly drenched in chorus and reverb and quite wave'ish sounding synthesizers, not just the typical analog sine/sawtooth type, but also the more modern pre-programmed versions. Underneath you will find something that could be a) a drumcomputer b) an electronic drumkit or c) acoustic drums with a horrible producer who likes to make his acoustic drumkit sound like an electronic one. Looking at some of their pictures, option b) seems the most plausible choice, also because this album is produced in a very fine way, and I would hate it to call the person who was responsible for its production horrible.

Even 'though the absence of love for this kind of music makes me unable to really enjoy Idle Labor, there are some details to be found that really crank up my appreciation for this album. The first being the absolutely lovely hypnotic dream pop'ish vocals that are present on this album, the second being the very typical guitar sound, reminging me a bit of The Cure on some songs (yes, one of those few bands from the 80's which I actually do enjoy).

As I said in the introduction, Craft Spells really don't deserve a negative review, the album is just too good for something stupid like that, but on the other hand, this album just lacks that tiny bit of quality that could make this top 20 of 2011 material. If you, unlike me, are a huge fan of that typical new wave sound that was first created in the early 80's and also enjoy the more dreamy type of music Cocteau Twins used to play, I would still recommend Idle Labor, for those who really prefer the more evolved sound of this kind of music, skipping this album and getting yourself a copy of Papercut's Fading Parade wouldn't be such a bad choice. 

Spread some love, the sun is shining,

Selwin.

PS: kudos for the coverart, fitting to the music in such a fine way.