The Boston-based trio's sophomore studio effort and first outing for Run for Cover, So Divine delivers a narcotic amalgam of churning, fuzzed-out indie rock, sludgy basement metal, off-kilter psych-folk, and torpor-inducing slowcore. Commencing with the slow-burning "Airport," which evokes
Sunny Day Real Estate by way of
Codeine and
Duster, the 11-track set establishes a distinctive hypnic jerk groove early on. As capable of achieving raw power as they are at doling out twitchy, molasses-slow slabs of sonic uncertainty,
Horse Jumper of Love create unsettling music using the dregs of traditional pop architecture. So Divine's miasmatic bleat is tempered a bit by frontman Dimitri Giannopoulos' fever-dream lyrics and propensity towards contrasting his delicate falsetto with
Cobain-esque howls of desperation ("I feel invisible with my clothes off!," "I'm not going anywhere!"), and the band's serpentine melodies and inventive arrangements help to elevate standout cuts like "Volcano" and the dream pop gem "Nature," the latter of which features the LP's stickiest riff. Echoes of early
Red House Painters run through the languid "Poison," and the bellowing "UR Real Life" resembles what
Pavement might have sounded like had they gone the shoegaze route. Slowcore, for better or for worse, often sounds like how being sick feels, and So Divine has plenty of terminal moments. That said, there is an undercurrent of playfulness (or madness) that weaves its way through the album that reveals itself more fully with consecutive spins. ~ James Christopher Monger