Apparently named after a NASA headline (“Young galaxy surrounded by material needed to make stars”), this is yet another breakthrough band from Canada and this, their debut album, is on the respected Toronto Arts & Crafts label. Their name perhaps indicates an acknowledgement of the Spaceman 3 / Spiritualized influence that is audible through much of the album; with the other chief reference point being Brian Jonestown Massacre, on this lush, spacey (pun intended) and atmospheric debut.

These influences can be best heard on the first track “Swing Your Heartache” (which clocks in at over six minutes: this isn’t a band afraid to draw out a song). A gorgeous opener this – starting with a very slow build before the drums and vocal kick in, and basically presenting their world weary manifesto, featuring statements such as “We believe in time that you will see / How a war might save us”; “Living’s a battle” and “We have learned that hope does not come cheap”. The contrast between the hard-bitten words and the lush (there’s that word again!) harmonies, organ sounds, tambourines etc is an interesting one.

Both male and female vocals are used – with “Outside the City” using the female singer coupled with an echoey spacey effect, with swirling harmonies as a nice counterpoint. This track also has a nice symmetry to the repeated lyrical line “Outside the city I see / I see I’m inside out”. The vocals are sometimes, however, a little low in the mix, and drowned out by everything else that is going on musically – as on “No Matter How Hard You Try”, which is unfortunate for a band gifted with such great singers.

For me, the album’s highlight came four tracks in, with the amazing “Lazy Religion”. This is one of those tracks that will stay in your head for a long time, with its twinkling synths, dazed vocals, stoned lyrics (“If you chase after your mind / It’ll only keep running away”) and, most of all, the gorgeous chorus. I think it’s meant to be about nihilism (“What would you do / If all that you believe in / Lifted away?”), but never has nihilism sounded so richly attractive.

It is a shame that this is followed by one of the two tracks that sound like padding or album-filler fodder (“Wailing Wall” – the other one being “Lost in the Call”). These constitute the only two rather forgettable moments on this album.

Other tracks I enjoyed very much were the slow, evocative “The Sun’s Coming Up and My Plane’s Going Down”, with its experimental middle eight; the more upbeat and poppy “Searchlight”; and “Embers” – a sad, haunted acoustic tale, and another highlight. The album ends with another long track – “The Alchemy Between Us” – with a drawn-out ending that may make you think, if you’re listening to it on vinyl, that the record has stuck, before reaching a dramatic crescendo to round things off nicely.

Best listened to: while having a cheeky “smoke”; in a candle-lit room; or gazing wistfully into the eyes of a loved one.
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Links
Young Galaxy [official site] [myspace] [interview] [buy it]