Welcome Strawberry by Welcome Strawberry: Album Review
Oakland, California shoegazers Welcome Strawberry offer hypnotic and surreal washed-out haze and lucid song-based compositions in their self-titled debut.
From the first track “The World Is Derived From Pleasure” featuring a wide array of vocal delays and steady bass to the over-the-top ending track Rebecca, Welcome Strawberry takes the listeners on a sonic roller coaster ride. One minute it’s setting a dreamlike groovy atmosphere with pulsating rhythms and trippy psychedelic overtones, the next minute it’s serenading you with beautiful staccato acoustic and spacey rhythms. It would be very difficult to bind the sound of the album to one particular genre. Sonically the album is so diverse that it sounds borderline experimental. This rings true not only for the instrumental sections but also for the vocal performance. Welcome Strawberry has demonstrated different vocal styles and techniques throughout the album while still maintaining the organic factor of “indie” be it backed by spacey futuristic synths or a steel string acoustic guitar. Given this is the debut album from the band, I think they’re still searching for their sound and in that process, they’ve created something so diverse that it covers almost the entire spectrum of the “indie soundscape” from reverb-soaked shoegaze style to radio pop. But the fact that this is the eponymous album might indicate this is their sound.
The real inspiration for this album came from works like Gregg Araki’s films and the book My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The songs were composed and recorded during the outbreak, which is why there are creative and emotive descending throughout the LP.
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Review by: Audrey Castel