Dream pop as a sub-genre emphasizes mood and atmosphere over songwriting chops. It’s nice to listen to, but what can the discerning music listener take from it? Usually, not much. The sub-genre succeeded in the early 90s with UK bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive crafting exquisite tunes that locate the balance between mood and melody. Soon a minion of bands popped up (like The Nightblooms, The Charlottes, and Chapterhouse, among others) tapping into the source with varying degrees of success.

For some reason, the sounds of the past resonate with bands of the present. Perhaps it is a nostalgia trip, a desire to emulate the sounds that these bands fell in love with in their younger days. Whatever. The Meeting Places, a Southern California group, have made a record that hearkens back to that so-called “Shoegazer” collective of the early 90s.

I’m not going to waste your time; Find Yourself Along The Way is heavy on mood and light on memorable songs. The Meeting Places invite you to ride along on their effects pedals to a land of layered guitar atmospherics and self-conscious vocalizations. The album opens with a reverberating-tremolo guitar that doesn’t let up for the next forty minutes! Seriously.

Now, to be fair, the record isn’t entirely mundane. “Same Lies As Yesterday” is one of the standout tracks while loaded with reverb, the melody actually moves, ascending on the chorus with sweetly searing guitar work. “Blur The Line” and “Wide Awake” also allow the melody to peak through the fog of that overused reverb stained guitar. These songs actually strive to transcend the mood (sort of like how The Boo Radleys took the Shoegazer disposition and mixed it up with experimental pop songwriting) and flirt with true songcraft.

You also have to give The Meeting Places credit on “Take To The Sun”, a six-minute, eleven second epic that vaguely recalls Spiritualized (the press kit points this out). The song is ambitious and finds the band exhibiting its experimental streak with sleek psyched-out changes and a distortion-laden ending. It may not work completely, but, hell, the attempt shows the band is trying to find its own voice. And Lord knows we need more young bands to fucking try.

But there are too many songs like “Freeze Our Stares”, “On Our Own”, “See Through You”, and “Where You Go” that have been played out by so many bands in the past that it’s difficult to call it anything but derivative.

Naturally, if one is inclined towards this sort of music, disappointment will go unrealized. The problem with Find Yourself Along The Way isn’t the musicianship, but the songwriting. It’s derivative, by-the-numbers, and ordinary. The press kit points out each musical touchstone for the songs, and that’s what the record seems to be: an exercise in “Let’s-do-a-song-like-[insert Shoegazer band name]”. Yes, it’s a nice sound, fun to listen to, but you walk away from each listen wondering if you heard anything.

Postscript: Oh yeah, and speaking of that press kit, it makes The Meeting Places out to be a much better band than they actually are, which, I know, is kind of the purpose of the press kit/bio. Still, this is one of the worst one-sheeters I have ever read, it is full of outright lies. The kit claims the vocals are “self-assured”, they aren’t. They point out “nimble drumming”; it’s not there. It points out the “trademark, thick, shimmered coatings of guitar resonance”; that means been-there-done-that-by-a-hundred-other-bands-in-the-past-ten-plus-years. This kind of embellishment nauseates me, because it goes beyond hyperbole. Way beyond.. Message to The Meeting Places: fire the bio writer.

back

© 2004 www.tidalwavemagazine.com