Chastity Belt - Time To Go Home

The second album from all-female Seattle quartet Chastity Belt mines a familiar vein of psych-tinged shoegaze. The problem is that it rarely achieves the lofty heights of the genre’s figureheads, such as My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive.
Opener ‘Drone’ does what it says on the tin, merging feedback-drenched guitars with ethereal noise straight from the MBV playbook, a formula the group reprise on tracks like ‘Cool Slut’, ‘Trapped’ and ‘On The Floor’. To their credit, Chastity Belt are careful not to get stuck in a stylistic rut and so venture into quirky art-rock on ‘Why Try’, piledriving hard-rock on John Carpenter tribute ‘The Thing’ and thumping post-punk on ‘Joke’, which mixes Joy Division-like bass and sunny guitars in a style reminiscent of The Drums (remember them?).
Though it’s all stylishly executed, none of the material is likely to be mistaken for the otherworldly brilliance of Loveless. US alt-rock enthusiasts will doubtless find much to admire, but I’d like to see them find a voice that is truly their own.

Key Track - 'Joke'