Desert Mountain Tribe

Om Parvat Mystery mEmBRan

Disappointing second album from London shoegaze trio. With the likes of Ride and Slowdive re-forming to make some of the best music of their careers, the pressure is on for their descendants to rise to the challenge of taking their sonic template to further reaches of the outer limits. Alas, for neo-heads Desert Mountain Tribe, Om Parvat Mystery falls well short of its ambitions by keeping its feet firmly entrenched on terra firma.

As displayed by World’s booming presentation and the overly swirling Himalaya, all sense of dynamics is lost with a uniformity of sound that dulls rather than excites throughout this monotonous record.

Though they’re to be credited for attempting to move away from the sonic template of their debut, the band’s decision to swathe everything in excessive amounts of reverb, echo and delay has resulted in an album that’s redolent of listening to Catherine Wheel with the hairdryer on at full pelt.

■■■■■■■■■■