Sounds like…

The place where dream pop meets a rock bar

The review

‘Part Time Punks Sessions Permanent Revisited’ is a bit of a clumsy title if you are coming to Fawns of Love brand new. This is the title for their new EP which is their second radio session in the Part Time Punks series on KXLU. The husband and wife duo continue to wow with that late 80’s Cocteau Twins vibe. This is their most clean-cut and immediate release to date.

The radio session features five different songs that merge together the dream-pop and shoegaze music genres. The synths are fluffy but have bleepy runs gliding underneath. The guitars are rubbery and switch between full echo and direct riffs. The drum machines evoke everything you remember from the ’80s too.

Whilst Joseph juggles much of the instrumentation, Jenny captivates you with her siren vocals. On tracks like ‘Permanent’ and ‘December’, she is pitch-perfect and truly evocative. Think Soft Cell’s ‘Torch’ and you are part way there but the retro-future production means she glides and floats around like a wisp. ‘Divine’ is a heavenly synth-driven dreamscape that shows how Fawns of Love can shift the elements of their work around to fit an entirely different mood too.

The EP moves away from the catchier singles towards the muddier grounds with ‘Someday’ and the almost instrumental ‘Horoscope’. The latter enjoys moving guitar riffs half a step above the notes where you’d expect them and it toys with your expectations. The only mild concern is that all five tracks come from their 2018 LP ‘Permanent’. Having listened to the tracks side by side, there are plenty of differences. It reminds me of when Dead Can Dance had radio sessions and the whole song would feel different because of production tweaks. The same applies here.

Whilst we wait for a new LP hopefully to come on the horizons, this live set is a lovely stop-gap for Fawns of Love fans. With each release, they continue to raise the bar for themselves and provide distance between themselves and the initial Cocteau Twins heavy influences they proudly wear. The more personality they continue to display for us, the better. They have a ton to offer.

[As a side note, their Bandcamp profile introduced me to the term Dreamgaze. We all need a little more of this in our lives!]

Recommended track: Permanent

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