August 2, 2018 — “Heavenly” by Cosmic Strip

Cosmic Strip

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Heavenly” by Cosmic Strip (2018, from the forthcoming EP Heavenly).

Cosmic Strip is an indie rock band from London. The band is masterminded by Camella Agabalyan, and she’s joined by four “Cosmic Friends”. They’re getting quite a bit of good press ahead of the release of their debut EP Heavenly, and the title track from it was released today. Many people are calling what they do shoegaze and “crunchy indie rock”, and they’re drawing comparisons to the likes of Beach House, Alvvays, and Slowdive. I’ve only heard one song from the forthcoming EP, and the first thing I thought of was the sort of squeaky clean “diet shoegaze” that Velocity Girl exhibited on their final album Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts. That record was much more poppy than their previous gazey stuff. I’m also reminded of a less effect-laden The History of Apple Pie. To be clear: although I think Gilded Stars… is the least awesome of VG’s records, I still like it a lot.

I noticed this band getting written about in one of the Facebook groups that I’ve joined, and then I got something in the mailbag about this song and the forthcoming EP. While I can’t say that I would compare the band to Slowdive, Alvvays, or Beach House, I really like what I’ve heard. There’s something about the nice, undistorted vocals that make me want to compare Agabalyan to Sarah Shannon out of VG and Stephanie Min out of THOAP.
While Min is nowhere near as objectively talented as Shannon, I always said that the former reminds me of the latter. And now Agabalyan reminds me of both. There’s also something that makes me think of the first Blondie record. When Blondie was still a punk band. There’s something else more contemporary that I’m reminded of, but I can’t quite lay my finger on it.

Without further ado, this is that song:
“Heavenly” by Cosmic Strip

Towards the end of this song, it does get a little heavy with the effects, a little gazey. From about 3:55 on, it sort of reminds me of the coda of any song from the Darling Buds outstanding album Erotica.

This reminds me a lot of many things that I like very much. It does not remind me of the things that other people are reminded of. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It’s just good.

I don’t know any of the details about when the EP will be out, but based on the hints that I could gather, it’ll be sometime in August.