Swedish quartet Mixtapes & Cellmates carve out their tiny cadres of laptronica with the density of breadth of a shoegaze band. Maybe that’s why they label themselves that. The reality is they borrow more from bands like The Postal Service, Junior Boys and DNTEL then anyone else on their self-titled debut. Heavy in atmosphere, its electronic fuzzes whisk in and out of earshot. At the end of the lone piano weeper “I Left” the song slowly builds to a downpour of static and synths.

“Statement” holds the biggest argument for shoegaze tags as the vocals are lost in sloshing waves of reverb that start yet again from listless guitar echoes eddying over scattered drum rolls. Much of the album sounds like an ambient music lover’s dream cloud full of watery sounds gushing down on a furtive soundscape of glitchy clockwork percussion. The guitars never feel menacing even when they whine up into icy peaks. “Moments” recalls some of the worst of Joy Division through a late ‘90s looking glass. The off-kilter “Dress Up, Wear Down” features some banal vocalizations and the guitars mimic a gossamer Built To Spill guitar riff (I know it’s strange). This hodge-podge of sound is seldom animated (a pitfall of any electronic outfit) but contains enough icy charm to deserve some careful attention.

Sometimes this debut shows some potential for being an album that keeps things together as a recognizable whole. The opener “Hold” promises great things despite at first sounding like a better cover of a Phil Collins song. The hiccuping static percussion is beguiling and the male-female vocals are at their most palatable. The descent into shogaze laptronica sounds like a sleep dream─or decaffeinated and defanged My Bloody Valentine.

The bitter sweet love songs get tiring quickly. Like a shoddy mixtape your old significant other made for you skip the songs that are bloated with meaning. On Mixtapes & Cellmates you skip the songs that are bloated with their self-importance.

“Streetlights Saved My Life” is a strange acoustic song with strange found sounds showcasing the Doppler effect in the background. It holds little momentum for itself and lilts as Robert Svensson sings with little drive. Dream pop has never sounded so weighted down.

The only songs that shake up the album’s codeine funk are the Mixtapes & Cellmates’ closing three songs (“Distance, Blinding Lights,” “C: and D: The Road Home,” “A Quiet Evening”). Their eerie shoegaze chamber pop adds color to a rather opaque landscape but it’s a slight case of too little, too late.
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Links
Mixtapes & Cellmates [official site] [myspace]