There is something about this neu welle-esque Stuggart-based band that cannot be ignored. The accessible lo-fi pop sound is already a winner for me but Levin Goes Lightly goes further and layers that with melancholic vocals and sad, desperately sad lyrics.

It’s like this sunny beach-pop hit you were lured with has suddenly gone round the bend into something unexpectedly darker – and then it spirals into this psyched-out kraut-rock jam and I, just, can’t get, enough:

“You’re getting old, you’re getting old, you’re getting old..”

 

Take this track, Spider’s Web. The opening sequence, with that tough, cold bassline, manages to combine post-punk sensibilities with, by the time the synths and drums hit, repeato-poprock seamlessly into a kind of melancholic ritualistic spaced-out death dance anthem:

“I’m stuck in a spider’s web, I drag, I drag, I drag..”

 

And the audacity at which this track Wideness, is able to channel all that New Order / Cash / Molko / Reed / Bowie sleaze, sadness and andro desire into one minimal yet catchy-as-fuck song makes me ache for more:

 

And I’ve left the best for last, my favorite track She’s Dancing – a familiar bassline, and the clash of the digital drumkit with a psych-pop twist, puts a smile on my face:

Buy Levin Goes Lightly’s album Neo Romantic out now via Treibender Teppich Records

 

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