Peaking Lights – Lucifer
Mexican Summer: 2012
In short this album is excellent for what it is and what it represents. That might seem like a bit of a noncommittal statement and that’s because that’s exactly what it is. You will probably enjoy listening to Lucifer, you’d certainly be hard pressed to find any fault with it, however one thing you might be unable to do is get excited about it. At least, that’s how it was for me, and whilst I’ll concede that other people might see it differently, there really isn’t a whole lot on this album that engages you directly.
Peaking Lights aren’t the sort of band that you would find headlining a major festival, but rather the sort of sideshow band you and your mates might enjoy whilst sitting in the sunshine and plotting your course for the rest of the night’s entertainment. This isn’t a fault necessarily, in fact come to think of it, it’s actually pretty admirable. However, the point still stands that there is nothing here that really makes you sit up and listen. You could describe their style as Indie-Tronica meets Disco, Dub, Krautrock and Pastoral Ambience whilst in transit through a mesmeric wormhole from one indistinct point the universe to another obscure and equally undefined point. Effective for leaving you in a soft edged, woozy, trance-state of starry-eyed wonder, but not so great for physical activities of any kind. Maybe you have to play it really loud and cruise a massive blunt to get the most out of it, but there’s plenty of other hypnotic, ambient and dub heavy music I’d rather listen to if that was the case.
As such I can’t really pick any highlights, everything is really good but despite three or four listens I’d be hard pressed to name a single track that stuck in my mind. Again this might be a good thing, especially if you’d rather listen to an album as one cohesive, extended piece of music rather than a collection of disparate tracks. The album certainly gets a lot more interesting once it moves away from the dreamy komische tracks into the dubbed out stuff, but from there on out the tracks are even less distinguishable from one another.
So in short, excellent music, perfectly judged, just nothing that grabs you by the balls and demands your attention. However, I will say this with the caveat that if you have a preference for laid back, non intrusive, uplifting music then you might feel that this is one of the albums of the year. There’s no doubting that people like that exist so it would be unfair to treat Lucifer with anything but quiet respect and admiration, I just won’t be cranking this one in the car, or at my next party, or during the birth of my firstborn. It was a good accompaniment to a very hungover Saturday morning last week and not many bands could lay claim to such a lofty accolade as that.
3.5 out of 5