Guiding Light

Reviews

Guiding Light Fear On My Own Time LP

Incredibly lush and well-defined production on this collection of art-pop. The lineage of VELVET UNDERGROUND to CHRONOPHAGE to 2026 is complete with this one. Every instrument is showing you most if not all of their best tricks, but not at any detriment to the music. The songs are engaging and short enough that this one will be over before you realize it, and the only proper thing to do would be to listen again. The lyrics are mostly in German but sung at a frenzied canter whose exigency is reminiscent of Minneapolis’ AQUARIUM. If you, like me, are a barely functioning adult with untreated ADHD, I would suggest you lightly jog through the streets while listening to this on a loop. It will make the world seem like a video game—a game whose ending will probably disappoint you, but until then, you will have a great soundtrack for this round of samsara.

Guiding Light Guiding Light cassette

First recorded outing from this new group of Austin punk provocateurs, with five tracks whipping by in a flurry of jangly hyper-strummed guitar (bordering on early WEDDING PRESENT velocity), incessantly bobbing bass, breakneck drumming, and mile-a-minute bilingual German/English femme vocals—it’s the dream world collision of BIG FLAME and HANS-A-PLAST that I never knew that I needed! I’m especially partial to ”Lost in Voices,” which careens for a minute-and-a-half like KLEENEX if they’d existed in the age of Lumpy Records, so restless and wired that it’s almost easy to overlook how intricate and complex the songwriting truly is, as well as the dusty lo-fi tumble of “Spiegelbild,” where GUIDING LIGHT ties knots in the loose threads left hanging by the two-headed dog of 2010s Lone Star art-damage excellence (VIVIENNE STYG/BLUE DOLPHIN) with the addition of some highly Neue Deutsche Welle-inspired off-kilter melodies and warbling synth. Get on it, mess(thetics) with Texas.