Secret Meeting score: 70
by Philip Moss
When you ponder where the next rising indie stars will hail from, the town of Halifax is up there with the last places you’d think of. But Heavenly Records have taken a punt on this young three piece – made up of sisters Esme and Sidonie, and their best friend Henry – and their faith, on the whole, has been repaid.
Opener, Mango, is a hybrid of slacker pop and bleary eyed Britpop that tells scuzzy summer tales – ‘we travel to the lake, looking up at the cityscape- this place looks familiar and my head is all over’, before building to a crescendo of organs. But with its discussion of ‘yard sales’ and ‘ice hockey’, you’d be even less likely to assume The Orielles hail from West Yorkshire.
In the words of the band, producer, Marta Salogni (Toy, Bjork, Alvvays) ‘is mint’, but the success of her work on Silver Dollar Moment comes from capturing them as organically as possible. Old Stuff, New Glass kicks off with a sister act of tight drums and bass ala Orange Juice, and descends into a rehearsal room jam that is literally all cow bells and whistles. Sunflower Seeds’ opening guitar riff is ready made for crowd surfing all summer long, but then the band really show their age as every guitar player’s first pedal – the Wah Wah – takes centre stage.
The record’s most transcending moments are its centrepiece pairing of Liminal Spaces and, its instrumental sister, The Sound of Liminal Spaces, which are somehow even dreamier than the tracks that surround them – as beautiful, glacial glockenspiels tinkle, enveloping Esme’s soft vocals.
Whether this is the fully formed, ‘silver dollar moment’ they’d hoped for, only the band could tell you. But regardless, this is very much a record that would perfectly soundtrack a lazy Sunday morning, and this encouraging debut shows there’s more going on in Halifax than you might think.
