Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 05/16/2006
Following an obscure 2001 self-released debut, bassist
Gabrielle Douglas and guitarist
Burette Douglas resettled in the hippie-ish college town of Burlington, VT, from their native Dallas and reorganized their band,
the Cush, as a blend of
Damon & Naomi's folky simplicity and the eclectic
post-rock artiness of the bands in
Broken Social Scene's extended family. Indeed, casual listeners would probably peg
the Cush for being from Toronto or Montreal, so much does
New Appreciation for Sunshine trade on soothing
space rock drones and delicate fingerpicked acoustic reveries rudely interrupted by multi-layered guitar-
noise freakouts, all of them overlaid with the couple's flat, affectless vocal style. (OK, so actually,
the Cush sound a lot like
Yo La Tengo as well.) Although
the Cush are working an increasingly crowded corner of
indie rock, the melodic depth of tunes like the
Galaxie 500-like loveliness of
"Small Town Movie" and the narcotic bliss-out quality of extended reveries like
"Heart Shaped Melody" and
"You're Free" are so appealing that the group's relative lack of originality doesn't matter in the slightest.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide