Singles

Glissando - The Long Lost/Of Silence

Chris Tapley 13/06/2010

Rating: 3.5/5

Leeds duo Glissando gathered quite a few admirers with their debut album With Our Arms Wide Open We March Towards the Burning Sea, a collection of wonderfully understated ambient shoegaze released on Gizeh Records in 2008. With a slew of stop gap releases in the interim though, most recently a free download EP of a mesmerising live performance at London's Union Chapel, they've ensured that people haven't forgotten about them either.

This double single is the first material to emerge from the follow up album which is scheduled for release in November. There's no massive surprises with the sound here, it is essentially an extension of the brooding, cavernous ballads which made up their debut. Initial listens may leave you a little dumb struck as to the appeal of these tracks, they are real slow burners, but after a few more listens the exquisite craft becomes patently clear. 'The Long Lost' is a noir-ish mesh of purposefully struck keys, sombre cello and Elly May Irving's ethereal almost operatic vocals. The whole track feels like a collision of beauty and murk, like a princess dancing through dim sodden streets littered with decaying corpses, and it's a captivating juxtaposition.

'Of Silence' has a similar tone, although to a lesser extent, it seems by all accounts a little more elegiac, and builds to more of a crescendo - albeit one executed with graceful restraint. Glissando have crafted a sound which is distinguishably their own, and given the critical acclaim which greeted their previous ouptut it would be little surprise if album number two pushed them further in to the limelight.