Flying Saucer Attack - Flying Saucer Attack (1993)

Emerging from shoegaze, Flying Saucer Attack were consciously obscure and experimental. Heavily influenced with the DIY aesthetics, they recorded most of their material at home on some sort of stereo system, producing a lo-fi sound that fits the music.

Flying Saucer Attack sounds like an experimental version of Jesus & the Mary Chain's Psychocandy. It has the same noise-pop guitars, it has the accessible hooks, and like on Psychocandy, a lot of the songs resemble each other (though not as excessively). They can be divided into two groups: "Moonset," "Popul Vuh 1" and "Popul Vuh 2" on one side - the latter 2 homaging the krautrock band of the same same - are droning experimentality sounding like I-don't-know-what - indian rituals or something. The 7 remaining songs all draw from the same noise-pop sound. As mentioned, Jesus & the Mary Chain is definitely an inspiration, but there are elements of My Bloody Valentine in there, too; the haze that sounds like the album cover looks, and the transparent vocals could possibly resemble lesser aggressive versions of songs like "I Only Said" and "To Here Knows When."

When I first found this, I thought this sound was something regular in shoegaze. I was amazed by the swirling noise of "Wish" and "Make Me Dream," so I was pretty dissappointed when I realised its uniqueness. Much due to Dave Pearce's wanting to be unknown, and to be highly experimental, they never became known; but many regard this as a shoegaze classic, alongside albums like Chapterhouse's Whirlpool and Ride's Nowhere. Flying Saucer Attack went on to create an album as highly regarded as this. On Further, they experiment with silent noise, and making shoegaze with acoustic guitars, still drawing from the dreaminess and JAMC-influences, but with a new, unique sound.

Flying Saucer Attack can be overwhelming and tiresome; you can be left in awe, but also in exhaustion, or often both. "The Season Is Ours" therefore fits perfectly as a quiet outro, soothing in contrast with every other song on the album, and probably an inspiration for what later became Further.

Flying Saucer Attack