Trailer Trash Tracys
Althaea
Release Date: Aug 11, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Dream Pop
Record label: Domino
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Althaea from Amazon
Album Review: Althaea by Trailer Trash Tracys
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8.1/10
As a band, Trailer Trash Tracys has pared down to a duo but increased in sonic intricacy in the five years since releasing its first album. The band's new full-length release, Althaea, is the long-awaited follow-up to that debut, Ester, and it demonstrates a broader range of influences and new layers in the band's particular brand of pop music. Founding members Susanne Aztoria and James Lee now form the core duo of Trailer Trash Tracys, with support from musicians Bei Bei Wang and Leo Martin.
Based on rating 8/10
It's been five years since London collective Trailer Trash Tracys released their debut full-length album Ester. That album was often labelled as 'dreampop', but that seemed to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Their layered and dense compositions often had dreamy elements, but moreover involved so much atmosphere and unique production choices that it could sound incongruous played directly alongside something delicate like Cocteau Twins or devastating like My Bloody Valentine; they seemed to float somewhere in their own realm.
Based on rating 7/10
Mystery seems to come naturally to Trailer Trash Tracys. After the release of their intriguing debut album Ester, they disappeared, then resurfaced five years later as the duo of Suzanne Aztoria and Jimmy Lee. With Althaea, the pair move farther away from conventional dream pop and toward a sound that shimmers like a mirage. Along with adding more synths to their music, they incorporate sunny elements that span Les Baxter-style exotica, Jan Hammer's music for Miami Vice, Filipino carnival music, and gamelan into a lush sound that's delightfully tricky to pin down.
Based on rating 3/5
Alliterative Londoners Trailer Trash Tracys arrived in 2012 with a debut record of complex, layered shoegaze. It was a time in which dream-pop was very much the flavour of the month, and the band found a place among it with a sound that combined the musical stylings of My Bloody Valentine, The xx and Beach House. Seemingly undeterred with changing fashions, they've pretty much picked up where they left off with second album ‘Althaea’.
'Althaea'
is available now