The Laughing Chimes – Whispers In The Speech Machine – Album Review
by Killian Laher

The Laughing Chimes are a band from Athens… not Athens, Greece, or even Athens, Georgia but Athens, Ohio!  And the sound of this, their second album, seems to derive from the indie charts of forty years ago or so.  No idea what that album title is about but musically it’s a solid album.

It opens with tremendous, jangling guitars on Atrophy and a vocal from Evan Seurkamp that’s indebted to Australians like Peter Milton Walsh.  So their reference points are literally all over the map.  He Never Finished The Thought opens with a blast of gauzy noise before big wide-open guitars dance across an anthemic melody.  Later on the album, the poppy High Beams has an even more upbeat melody and guitars.

Country Eidolism sees the band drop the intensity with gorgeous guitar picking and a sun-dappled melody to sink into.  Cats Go Car Watching might be the catchiest thing here, jangly guitars pick out an alternative 80s-style melody, the type of thing that music magazines used to refer to as perfect pop.

A Promise To Keep is another slice of gorgeous jangle, this time Seurkamp goes a bit Peter Murphy in the chorus, and the track finishes up with some pleasing feedback.  The only track you could describe as in any way ‘heavy’ here are the squealing guitars and thumped drums on Flourescent Minds.

The tracks are all fairly short, between three and four minutes, and the whole album lasts just 27 and a half minutes.  They could probably have done with a little variation but it’s an addictive collection of tunes that will transport you to indie-land for just under half an hour.

Cats Go Car Watching