Heartbreaking Bravery

A few of 2014’s most interesting releases surfaced this week and continued to expand 2014’s shockingly great output. There was Glish‘s unflinchingly heavy and absolutely monstrous self-titled shoegaze stunner, easily both one of 2014’s finest and most fascinating records. Sundials continued crafting excellent 90’s punk-indebted left-field powerpop with their Kick EP, which is also their first effort for Topshelf Records and Espectrostatic offered up the eerie, foreboding ambient psych masterpiece Escape From Witchtropolis just in time for Halloween- and some seriously great accompanying album art.  Then there was the full stream of a record that’s (rightfully) earned a lot of love on this very site: Happy Diving’s Big World.

Ever since Happy Diving came roaring into view with songs like the irresistibly charged-up “Weird Dream“, Big World has been the kind of record teeming with enough potential to elicit salivation. Now that it’s finally out in the world, all of that anticipation has been obliterated; Big World annihilates those expectations. Savage, fuzzed-out, damaged, and absolutely massive even before it hits the halfway point, it’s a record that pays off Father/Daughter Records’ early investment in the band with what’s easily one of the year’s most essential records. Sequenced and produced to perfection, even the minutiae manages to come off as enviable. Only a little over a year into their career, Happy Diving are swinging for the fences and connecting with just about everything that falls into their aim(s). Bottom line: don’t miss this and support something great while it unfolds in the present.

Listen to Big World below and pre-order it from Father/Daughter here.