Shimmering Stars – Violent Hearts

Shimmering Stars arrive to the reverb/Spector/dream-pop party fashionably late, with a record that makes no qualms about lifting hooks from bygone hit parades. Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Wild Nothing are already inside making themselves at home, flicking through the Jesus and Mary Chain vinyl and pouring cocktails, and initially, Violent Hearts doesn’t measure up, a humble wallflower by comparison.

First impressions paint it too slavishly indebted to teen idols of the fifties and sixties, with drum-beats borrowed from The Ronettes and harmonies from Del Shannon. But the trio avoid becoming redundant pastiche or, worse, mere genre roughage (the grey bulk that pads the ranks of any popular style) through sheer sincerity. They nail both indie-disco slow-dance and up-tempo rock n roll, with an average track length around the two minute mark – borrowed nostalgia perhaps, but well observed borrowed-nostalgia, chock full of string bends, echoes and melancholy. [Chris Buckle]