by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
Howless project a deceptively effortless, brooding cool. You could almost place the Mexico City quartet on the 4AD roster of the 1980’s, if not for the sleek, nostalgic polish they bring to their debut album, To Repel Ghosts (Static Blooms Records). Like plenty of pure throwback acts, they open on strobing drum machines and rippling arpeggiated synth (which is still badass, no matter how many times it’s been done). They ditch the on-the-noseness of the retro-wave crowd as soon as Dominique Sánchez and Mauricio Tinajero’s hazy double vocals enter; Howless doesn’t imitate the moodiness of new wave, goth rock, and dream pop as much as they channel it outright, in shadowy auras that gather in the air around their songs and linger in their wake.
Producer Rod Esquivel oversees a meticulous, selectively sharp mix. Like the band’s video for “Unlucky,” which cuts judiciously between professional footage, smartphone shots, and comparatively grainy handycam footage, To Repel Ghosts packs every drum hit with as much punch as humanly possible, every guitar with chorus or distortion as needed, and every vocal take with a shroud of perfectly-calibrated echo. Classic aesthetics–modern slickness and precision. Many of the songs work outside the track list as playlist-ready earworms. In context, they sound even better as devices for gathering and releasing tension. After the pulsing seethe of “Fade Out,” the guitars on the lead single “Levels” sound downright jangly, blowing in like the wind to push the clouds out from in front of the sun, however briefly.
Howless’ operative refrain comes from the first track: “We can fade out, but we’re still young.” It speaks to the defiant sense of purpose and lack of self-indulgence that drives To Repel Ghosts. The record reads as a debut still in the process of finding the last touches that’ll put Howless’ signature on their genres of choice. That said, on their first outing, their discipline already puts them in striking distance of Heaven or Las Vegas.