For such a well-kept secret, it’s quite impressive that LA’s Letting Up Despite Great Faults can already boast of airplay on BBC News and rave reviews from the US music press. Letting Up, as they are known casually, achieved both recently, after soundtracking a new Facebook trailer.
The video was all over the internet and TV, exposing the band to millions of potential listeners. If the song featured – current single ‘Teenage Tide‘ – is any indication of their talent, the release of upcoming EP ‘Paper Crush‘ should soon see them convert many of those listeners into fans. With their previous releases lauded by the blogosphere and many key North American reviewers – think Rolling Stone and Canada’s Exclaim! – Letting Up have built a solid reputation for making dreamy and melodic indie pop.
Centred around founding member Mike Lee, Letting Up obviously spent a lot of their adolescence listening to the shoegaze, dream pop and indie of the late 80s and early 1990s. Lee’s languid, whispery delivery recalls Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine at their most delicate, but there’s also a stirring undercurrent of electronica that points to Stereolab or early New Order and thankfully, Lee has also inherited that band’s gift for catchy melodies.
Yet despite a pot of influences nearly 20 years old, a more accurate reference would still be indie darlings Broken Social Scene because ultimately, Letting Up sound utterly contemporary. This last point is vital. Although it’s the sort of dream-pop that would’ve sent the indie kids crazy in the late 80s, nothing here sounds like a throw-back.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults – Sophia In Gold by lettingup
The beautiful ‘Sophia in Gold‘ is case in point. The words may well be straight from the C86 handbook: “You better bring her back and never leave her, she’ll always be the one you love”, but the atmosphere, beginning with gentle guitar and synth lines which linger throughout the song, sound more 2011 than ’86. The soundscape builds slowly as Lee piles hook upon hook of instrumentation. Meanwhile a mechanical drum beat and Krautrock bassline thump away in the background.
Then there’s first single, ‘Teenage Tide‘. Shoegaze influences abound over a wave of words that touch on the turbulence of youth. “My teenage war still marks me undefeated in your room again,” Lee whispers intimately. Each instrumental layer adds another instantly hummable hook while Lee’s paper-thin vocals do the same. It’s one of those songs that slowly chips away at you, quietly embedding itself into your sub-conscious. It goes beyond all this genre talk about shoegaze and dream-pop because above all that, it’s just a great song. And if its Facebook appearance is anything to go by, even Mark Zuckerberg’s a fan.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults – Teenage Tide by lettingup
After making great waves with critics in the blogosphere, Letting Up seem destined to take their next step in the indie world. Armed with a clear talent for songwriting, another excellent record should propel the band to greater heights. And early indications suggest that ‘Paper Crush’, released October 24 on Heist or Hit, will be that record.
The single ‘Teenage Tide’ is out now. Letting Up Despite Great Faults are expected to tour the UK early next year.
(Luke Henriques-Gomes)
