After detouring into hobbit rock territory with the short-lived Syrup USA, Seana Carmody returns to the dreamy noise-pop of her Swirlies years on her excellent solo debut Struts and Shocks -- at times, in fact, the disc's fondness for dense, churning guitars and celestial atmospherics seems to suggest the past decade never happened, and the shoegazer sound never went away. Carmody's fragile, sleepytime voice is put to far better use here than it ever was in the Swirlies, however, and her ingratiatingly melodic songs are models of economy, with all but the epic closer, "Stay Awake," hovering around the three-minute mark.
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