TRVE WIDOW (2008)

Earnest slowdoom or doomgaze or slownergaze(?) which verges on, whether accidentally or not, alt metal (gasp) and grunge too (along with the shoegaze), and so it shoots for Kyuss but connects at Alice in Chains instead, and because of this its soaring Slowdive aspirations feel like they're being viewed from the Deftones desert camp, Thursday morning, 2:30am. As a consequence, the slowcore leftovers appear like I Guess I Would era Acetone drove out to join them for a feel-bad stargaze session- no campfires, cellphones, or snacks allowed.
True Widow is that feel-bad desert stargaze session. Everyone's invited but what's encouraged is a few minutes of passive or vicarious participation in the vague yet (within the camp) generally well agreed upon view that all things are heavy for reasons unknown and perhaps even unknowable. Our investment in it can actually be pleasantly sincere if we can believe that the others are either a) enjoying themselves right here and now in spite of their initial reason for meeting, or b) would rather be anywhere else, rather than say just glorifying the absence we all know is there and wish to fill with something we can't seem to find and don't think we ever will. A lesser record would do just that.

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Acetone - If You Only Knew (1995)

A sophisticated appreciation of just-off-harmonies and quietness learned from their time slowcore-ing country songs on I Guess I Would distinguishes If You Only Knew from Acetone's first album, Cindy. Cindy's trick was a mocking spontaneity and feigned indifference, the conceptual bummer underpinning the words which did give a fuck. The trick here isn't so much a trick, but genuine intimacy. In fact, by this stage they've achieved all they wanted to and have to actively rock n roll things up every now and again to convince us they're alright

(They weren't (RIP))

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Acetone - I Guess I Would (1995)

My new favourite downers' covers EP. With Cindy I thought I had them all figured out- casually fucked up like Neil Young but without the frantic transcendence, noise rockers without the ideological guts, Chilton's passionate indifference without the need to fully debase their own songs, Low's icy detachment but still warm and fuzzy, or whatever, and so on, and looking at that I think Wilco but they're not Wilco and they're nothing like Wilco on Cindy, but on I Guess I Would they sorta are 'cause you get the above and country but it's not, too, I don't know where I'm going, I just love it, I really do, from the lucid proto-late-era-Earth instrumental opener to the scuzzy 11 minute closer, I just really love it all

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Acetone - Cindy (1993)

Rocks so casually you can hardly handle it- Come On features disembodied vocals and low-singing reminiscent of Low, and the guitars wind and whine but they're bloated and live sounding, heavy and interesting because dude played softly and carelessly a little bit close to his amp rather than working anything experimental into his technique or tunings. That loose garage aesthetic you get from downers like Neil Young blasting your ears away 'cause they don't wanna bend down and lose some distortion, and hey, they'll rock in the process any way, or that youthful spontaneity which encourages them to steal from Isaac Hayes' Walk on By or the fucking Grease soundtrack

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