Cameras / In Your Room

Cameras
In Your Room
(Manimal Vinyl)
****
Aussie band Cameras’ debut album accosts you with sweltering, trembling guitars and rambling drums, set in time with duelling his and hers vocals. Hers are bittersweet, hounding the effects-laden, scratchy guitar that’s woven in, becoming one of several melodious layers, as heard in tracks Polarise and I Know. The bittersweetness oozes all over the album. At his turn to sing, the vocals turn indie gothic-horror. They are laid over the emotionally dense background conveyed by repeated minor guitar notes meeting head on, those of the keys and bass. It’s reminiscent of Interpol, but with lower - to the nadir, to the damned - deep dark vocals. All of which is hauntingly captured in Kreuzberg. The hazy heady stacks of sounds from this four piece leave no room to not be affected by their bipolarity of harrowing and inspiring. Cameras package it into a limited space, where it doesn’t get self indulgent, and still has basic pop sentiments at its core. Here’s a debut album to indulge in.
Libby Moné