Crescendo wraps themselves in the brightest, billowiest sheets they can find on "Softly"

05 February 2016, 09:45 | Written by Jon Putnam

(Tracks)

(Crescendo)

The lighter side of dream pop and shoegaze has always worked to satisfy the paradoxical desire of drawing in the brightness and vastness of limitless space while at the same time wanting to turn that blissful abandon into something tangible to cocoon oneself inside of it.

Los Angeles dreamgaze trio Crescendo’s latest single, “Softly,” is indeed the aural equivalent of plummeting through the ether and landing on the brightest, downiest set of bed linens, wrapping up tightly in them against the outside world.

Gregory Cole’s guitar is at once pristine The Smiths-like chiming wrapped in enough gauze for softening its edges to glide alongside his and Olive Kimoto’s diaphanous vocals. It’s a both familiar and welcome sound, My Bloody Valentine if Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher would open their drapes and wipe away a few layers of haze.

Crescendo’s sophomore LP, Unless, is out 19 February courtesy of We Were Never Being Boring Records. The band will appear 20 March at SXSW in Austin, Texas and 23 March at Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Idaho.