Bloodhounds On My Trail
Bloodhounds On My Trail is a shoegaze quartet from Melbourne. There are 23.7 million people living in Australia, and it seems like most of them are in shoegaze bands. It’s my kind of place. Last year, I spent a lot of time writing about some really great bands coming out of the bustling Australian shoegaze scene. A lot of really brilliant things are happening in Melbourne and Brisbane, and I hope there’s plenty more on the way.
I don’t know much, if anything about this band, and I didn’t even know that they existed until a couple of days ago when I saw another one of their songs in my soundcloud feed. This is four guys who really like the classic UK shoegaze, dream pop and post-punk bands of the 1980s and 90s. And also the US proto-punk stuff of the 1960s and 70s. They say they want to make music that bridges the gap between Iggy Pop and Slowdive. The band formed in February of last year and released their debut EP in October. At some point along the way, they played some support shows for Lowtide (who released my 15th favorite album of 2014). Gabe Lewis from Lowtide called BOMT one of the “best Aussie shoegaze acts“. And they’re just getting started.
Speaking of getting started, today’s song is the first song on the four-track EP. It’s a sparkling debut record, and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead. Anyway, this is that song:
“Old Fools” by Bloodhounds On My Trail
Miles of delay, sheets of gossamer and gauze, shimmering guitars, sparse drumming, black lights and fog machines. It’s all there. It actually reminds me a lot of the stuff that was coming out on the sadly defunct American shoegaze/dream pop label Bedazzled Records in the mid-to-late 1990s.
In the intro, the guitar bit, or loop, or whatever it is, is really ethereal and dreamy before everything comes crashing in together at the 0:25 mark. In the coda, it’s the same bit in reverse with heavier delay. I really love the long fade with heavy delay.
Hopefully, these guys will have a long-player ready sometime in 2015. For now, you can get the EP from the band’s bandcamp page. They also have a couple of standalone digital singles available at the “name your own price” level.
this is that song 