NME.com | Album review: Au Revoir Simone "Still Night, Still Light"

by: Gavin Haynes

It’s suddenly twilight round Au Revoir Simone’s way. Once, the three girls who were so polite they never decided who should play bass or drums in their band illustrated their sensitivity in more sunny indie-pop ways. Now, like M83, they’ve expanded their vocabulary to explore the thesis ‘Thwarted Yearning = Youth’, thus ‘Still Night…’ is rich in OTT romanticism cut with vague dread. ‘We Are Here’, for instance, wears its melancholy so languidly it could’ve fallen off the back of The Virgin Suicides’ soundtrack. ‘Knight Of Wands’ shows how cleverly they’ve slashed the sonic clutter, offering the simplicity of ‘My Sweet Lord’ as rewritten by Stereolab. Music to stick pins in voodoo dolls of the popular kids by.