Holy Page has been releasing quality cassettes for over a year now, most of which hold some highly addictive properties, so it came as no surprise, that by the end of my second listen of Angelo Harmsworth's latest, I couldn't seem to flip the tape over again quite fast enough.Playground Barriers opened itself up to me almost immediately, with a array of shimmery and vibrational melodies, all weaving in and out of one another with no real end in sight.The deep swells of a dozen chords all blaring out at once had me so entranced, it was almost as if time had stopped for a few minutes.I could feel the low end of this mysterious rumbling deep within my chest, and just as it would fizzle out and disappear, leaving me calm and anxious, another swell would come on even stronger than the last.The phrasing is definitely in there somewhere, but it's well hidden beneath piles of delays and fuzz, leaving you with what seems like one continuous pummeling made from thick layers of good vibes.
Harmsworth's heartfelt drones weren't so easy for me to pick apart, as all of the sounds are combined to make one all consuming sound, but I'm pretty sure it was a heavily treated guitar, coupled with various bass instruments that was making my bones hum.Whatever is in his arsenal, be it analog or digital, there is a fairly deep connection between them here, and it's the kind of strange chemistry that any group of musicians would spend years trying to harness.Playground Barriers hits you like a hundred white floodlights all beaming at once, and just as they start to fade, and your eyes slowly begin to come back into focus, they just blast you again and again, each time in a completely different color.Incredible stuff.Get one from Holy Page.
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