Auto Interiors - No Frill Halo Flight

Let's set it straight, right from the start: Auto Interiors are the band that the UK's Ash have been struggling so hard to become. Cryptic Boy Son Blues is the kind of thing you can hear Tim Wheeler reaching for, but never quite grasping - and yet it's not even the best tune on this Boston-based five-piece's debut. Yowza! Yep, it's that good.

No Frill Halo Flight is firmly entrenched in the land of pop. Not twee pop, but the sort of pop that sounds like it's had a couple of dinner-dates with Ride. Shimmery, fuzz-laden guitars soar above woozy keys, though with collegiate pep rather than the shoegaze-dogging "aww shucks" air that mars so many. These are tunes you'll play in the car on sunlit days - airy, happy and strangely familiar. In their appropriation of various '60s arrangement techniques, Auto Interiors are better than most; the songs all sound fresh and engaging, the sort of tunes that create a feeling of good-natured envy in would-be songwriters everywhere.

It's not all mop-top-shakin', though; elsewhere, the group's psychedelic/Pink Floyd influence is shown pretty readily. Shooting Flares contains some superb slide-work that's easily as accomplished (and hell, as groovy) as Meddle-era Dave Gilmour. Both bands have an easy handle on lugubricity; there's just enough going on to keep from falling into the Deadhead navel-gazing slot, but not enough to make the listener jerk up out of the banana-lounger in a pogo-frenzy. This is a Good Thing. It's also, thankfully, the only real nod to the spaceships featured in the album's cover-art - there's no acid-frenzy meandering to be found here. The spacious moments inside these tunes all seem to make sense. They aren't victims of the idea of atmosphere over musicality; these songs are short, powerful, and evoke quietude when needed. Which, thankfully, ain't often - there's too much joy here to be contained with bouts of morbid universal navel-gazing.

The disc's only drawback is the fact that the vocals - when they're not harmonizing, that is - are buried a little too far back in the mix for my tastes. Musically, these guys are solid, so it'd be good to be able to hear the lyrics relatively clearly. Then again, incomprehensibility never stopped Spiritualized, so why should it bother these guys? They're already ahead on musical points; they know exactly how much overblown arrangement a song can take, and they stick to it. For that alone -- a rarity in space rockpop - No Frill Halo Flight is worth your time.

This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.

Cuong Vu - Come Play With Me

Something that surpasses Miles Davis in intensity? Are you sure you're not on crack?

Cuong Vu is, in the trumpet world, a big wheel. If your tastes tend towards the downtown, you're probably already familiar with him - he's the trumpeter for the Pat Metheny Group - though he's also known for having blown on records (or on stage) with a number of people, ranging from David Bowie to Laurie Anderson to Cibo Matto.

Cuong's trio (bass and drums, joined by guitar and lap-steel on one track) is utterly phenomenal. For starters, this bass-heavy monster simply oozes from the speakers: the room is filled with one of the deepest beds of sound I've heard - forget Tool's assault, this sounds like a room full of musical molasses that somehow makes sense as it overwhelms, though you'll have difficulty believing that three people can create such a noise.

Opening track Dreams, Come Play With Me begins with a garble of sound, and slow drumming that seems to be wearing a sneer. Oblique twangs set the scene until a soulful and smoky Cuong enters. If ever there were music to spy by, then this is it - laziness with a holster that amps up into scratching suspense. Vina's Lullaby, by contrast, soothes - over an undulating bed of bass, the trumpet sings sweetly, before piston-like percussion interrupts to give the affair some swing.

Amniotic sees us back in spy-rock territory - mysterious sound-swells and the feeling that there's something left unsaid, despite the chiming guitars' openness. If ever music begged to be used in a film, it's this - though the film in question would probably have to be directed by David Lynch. Swinging back to the relatively normal again is "Safekeepings", a wonderful sunrise of a song that sounds like warmth, oddly.

Come Play With Me saves its best track for last. Again And Again And Again sounds like a drunken trumpet having an involved shouting match with the ensemble, and attempting to leave the venue, pack its bags and move out to the country. It's utter chaos, with only a few phrases to hang on to, but the sense of fragility, of imminent collapse that the music communicates is crystal-clear. And at the end of it all, it rocks like a mad bastard. What more could you ask for?

It's hard to avoid references to Miles Davis when talking about the trumpet, but Cuong is the nearest thing I've heard to someone encapsulating and surpassing Davis' range of textures. Imagine, if you will, Bitches Brew or On The Corner, but with more cinematic clarity and less drug-addled wank. That's where Cuong Vu and his musical juggernaut are sitting, just waiting to crush you. And you'll love it.

This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.