It’s strident motorik pulse whips along like a jet-ski, hooky and precise, documenting a sort of tranquil nightmare.
Words: Elvis Thirlwell | Photo: Kal Laurence
As the season folds into the murk of winter and the cold winds tighten their bracing screws, Devonshire trio Pale Blue Eyes are hustling a haunted kind of gothic pop in digitized rural retreats. Soldered together in a self-built studio pitched south of Dartmoor, TV Flicker, the group’s first for label Full Time Hobby, at once evokes starry countrysides and mechanised futures, where electronics fizz in the undergrowth and patch cables tango with the ivy tendrils.
Prompted by the death of singer/ guitarist Matt Board’s father, and his recourse to the blank hum of a television screen to assuage his grief-wound brain, TV Flicker documents a sort of tranquil nightmare. It’s strident motorik pulse whips along like a jet-ski ‘cross the river Styx; clairvoyant synths, hooky and precise, Ouija flurries of departed souls; Robert-Smithed, guitar abstractions swirl in the clotted mist.
This vibe sinks perfectly into the fabric of these endless, endless evenings. With more material promised, and a tour supporting Silverbacks ledgered for the new year, I’d linger on these Pale Blue Eyes, if I were you.
hardofhearingmagazine.com 