Velvet Dynamite: Dark Light review – multilayered sounds from Mullingar

Three years on the go hasn't necessarily meant that this Mullingar, Co Westmeath band are well known. Up until recently, main songwriter Darren Smyth and his cohorts have been tinkering away on demos (and other snippets he terms "sonic fuck-ups") that, while not necessarily also-rans, weren't exactly the results of what they heard in their heads. Dark Light has changed that sense of misjudgment. Two EPs of instrumental tracks stapled together (titled In the Shadow of a Dying Light and In Light of the Dark), the record is informed by Smyth's love of film scores and soundtrack composers. Multilayered throughout, shifting and rippling, weaving and surging, tracks such as Clinging to the Sun, Winter Storm, Reformation and Velvet Overdriver (Last Fair Dreams Burn Down) display an automatic grasp of hard-wearing, slow-build dynamics. A very cool wind-down for 2016. velvetdynamite.com