Release Date: May 18, 2004
Record label: Reprise
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Even the expansive plains of Texas weren't big enough to house the vivid imaginations of Secret Machines. So they've moved to New York City and made a debut album that makes them sound like inhabitants of a colony on the moon. The sheer scope of these multi-textured tracks is overwhelming. Sounds build and shudder, a speeding rhythm takes you unawares, gorgeous Beatles-influenced harmonies offer cosy warmth.
Secret Machines kick open the doors of Now Here is Nowhere onto a vista so epic and vast, it takes nine minutes to pan across. The drums march a glam army to battle, all sabers and rayguns, the bassline thundering out of heavy Germanic skies. Occasionally a jet tears across, on its way to firebomb someplace previously unrocked. Brandon Curtis narrates some urgent race to the prize, pitting ‘them’ against ‘us’ and announcing the stakes at hand: “Leaves from modern trees / rest on walls like these,” he offers, just before the assault gives its only brief pause.