Review: Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain

Opener “Don’t Take My Sunshine Away” coasts along for a dreamy 2:20 before skittering into a fuzzed-out, digitized guitar solo. It’s a glorious moment. Gentle indie-pop is pushed through the ringer and destroyed by sputtering static and noise. It’s much akin to the “Chk! Chk!” noises just before the chorus in Radiohead’s “Creep.” Then the moment ends, the song resumes, and the album continues, unadultered. I’m not familiar with Sparklehorse’s back catalogue, but I was hoping for more of these moments, more explosions, more dissonance, more excitement. The album doesn’t deliver, but it doesn’t not deliver either. The rest of the album recalls the dreamy guitar-pop of a quieter My Bloody Valentine, with its drawn-out melodies and mid-tempo pacing. Songs such as “Return to Me” and “See The Light” are gorgeously sparse guitar ballads that are startlingly intimate, while “Ghost In The Sky” and “It’s Not So Hard” pick up the pace with distorted guitars and fuzzed vocals. Songwriter Mark Linkous’ production is half the pleasure of listening to the album, providing just the right amount of accentuation and emphasis wherever it’s needed.