Shoe-gaze duo the band in Heaven is a blissfully distorted pop concoction. What sets them apart is the unique contrast they create—they manage to be severe yet sweet at the same time. Listening to their demo, you are sucked into a homespun dream sequence though not in such a way that it blurs together as many bands of the dream-pop genre tend to.
Each song, though equally confusing and aimless, manages to stand on its own as a sort of individual trance. The hauntingly vivid kind you remember and want to write down. Suppressed amongst dizzying repetition and reverb, the vocals have a sort of calming effect, like they’re letting you in on a secret. In this way they manage to command attention. You want to know what they have to say next, even if what they actually are saying doesn’t make sense.
They strike a nice balance between lo-fi fuzz and guitar distortion. Though at times their presence is vaguely reminiscent of the Velvet Underground traveling in time to cover ‘80s pop essentials such as the Cranberries, they’ve really managed to create something distinctive. Each song has something special to offer. Even their covers (of the Cranberries and Q Lazzarus) present something successfully reinvented. The band in Heaven could very well be influential in the movement to revive the shoe-gaze genre.
