Say Psych: Premiere: Rev Rev Rev – One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another

Following a recent trip to the US for a run of shows at SXSW and the announcement that they’d signed to London-based label Fuzz Club, Italy’s finest shoegazing noise-rockers Rev Rev Rev are now gearing up to release their highly-anticipated third album, Kykeon and BSM brings you the premiere of their new track ‘One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another’.

Veering away from the blistering psychedelic noise-rock that’s to be found on most of the album – as seen in the first single, ‘Clutching The Blade’, released back in March – ‘One Illusion…’ is instead a ritualistic shoegaze-y drone that explores repetition and texture over their usual sonic belligerence. Talking about the track, guitarist Sebastian Lugli says: “We like the listener to be conveyed to a hypnotic flow so we work by subtraction, minimising centrifugal elements such as harmony and rhythmic variations and instead playing with the sonic texture. ‘One Illusion’ is all built on repetition, with different layers of sound going in and out. There’s the Tanpura, modular synths and some guitars. Among these is the one played with a Mush-trem, a vintage sounding tremolo that I self-built in an old volume pedal case to continuously change the rate while I play”.

On what we can expect from the rest of the album – the band’s first since 2016’s Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient – Sebastian continues: “Kykeon is about exploring the obscure. It’s a ritual descent into the underworld, but also a flight through the cold spaces amid the stars. There’s stripped-back song structures, trance-like drumming, fuzzy reverberated guitars, abrasive atonal sounds and tonnes of feedback.”

Since the release of their self-titled debut album back in 2013, Rev Rev Rev – based in Modena, Italy – have repeatedly been hailed as one of the finest proponents of the modern shoegaze revival. They’ve clocked up airtime and praise from 6 Music, Drowned In Sound, Clash Magazine and Bandcamp Daily and wound up taking their notorious live shows across the UK, Europe and, now, the US; sharing the stage with the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Ringo Deathstarr along the way. Their finest work yet, Kykeon proves that Rev Rev Rev are without a doubt one of the finest bands today to be carrying the torch for shoegazers far and wide, old and new.

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