New Chain

Small Black proves it isn't merely the finest exemplar of a fleeting trend, but the best possible crew to be on top when the wave (finally) breaks.

In all honesty, New Chain isn't so very different from the rest of the Bushwick bulk. What is worth returning to, however, is the fact that the music offered is effortlessly lovely, memorable, well-transitioned, and oddly addicting.

Small Black isn't interested in courting that level of drama however, and though New Chain can come across as naggingly unmemorable at times, with one slippery synth melding into the next insistent bass thump, there's enough here to warrant returning for the odd refresher.

New Chain, with it's gorgeous smattering of vivid synth patterns, is "Despicable Dogs" reupholstered: It still feels like a sunrise bike ride with a head full of weed, but this time in full-blown technicolor.

New Chain, the dreamy debut album from New York's Small Black fulfills much of the promise of last year's Small Black EP with a cohesive collection of drunken bedroom pop. [Fall 2010, p.62]

Small Black sometimes gets lumped into the chill-wave trend, sharing bills and fans with acts like Washed Out and Real Estate. The band shouldn't take it to heart-they clearly have more to offer than contentedly stoned background music. They'd do well to explore their own record collections again and not get caught up listening too intently to the music of their tourmates.

If it's quality songwriting you're after, you've probably come to the wrong place this time, but what New Chain does offer is a 35-minute celebration of the spirituality of sound, bursting with life and soul, as thrilling as it is giddying.

Listening to New Chain, there's no reason now to think that Small Black can't put that fine touch to making an album with a tight balance between their drowsier sensibilities and their hookier, head-nodding ones.

At this stage, Small Black are a charming but undeveloped outfit. Moving from an aquarium to a sea (or even a pond) would be an intriguing next step.

Mostly these songs seem slight and shy, unable, really, to support the massive facades of synth and disco drums that Small Black layers onto them.

New Chain is unmistakably chillwave, undeniably fashionable within the American music scene right now, but doesn't half make you yearn for a bit of sunshine.

Their first full album polishes some rough edges down to a soft-focus burr as synths eddy away in a fog of sound that is often only given direct form by the haphazard beats beneath. [Dec 2010, p.113]

Small Black are more convincing when they move into sharper focus. [Dec 2010, p.96]

A gooey, iffaintly sickly, treat. [Nov 2010, p.101]

They are making pretty, tightly structured pop songs cheaply, or at least pop songs that sound cheaply made, and pretty, and melancholy, and somehow detached and futuristic.

Small Black haven't quite mastered balancing their newfound polish with memorable songs, but New Chain's sound is so appealing that it could be considered one of the first chillwave albums aimed at the mainstream.