Album Review: Brighter Later - The Wolves

Brighter Later have struck a near perfect balance in their debut album The Wolves. With a sound so sparse and ethereal, it would be a really difficult thing to achieve, but the dreamy Melbourne duo have found a gorgeous middle ground between under-doing it and over-doing it. Having been recorded with minimal gear in an church and Jaye Kranz's old home, the DIY approach has worked in their favour; the final product sounds as natural as the methods in which it was fashioned.

The Wolves demands your attention without actually forcing it on you. The misty accumulation of echoes and dream-like cooing that make up the album's opening track, The Woods, is all-encompassing, and, within the first minute, coaxes you into the other-worldly atmosphere that keeps you entranced until the album's close.

The beauty of this album is its cautious execution. All The Great Lakes treads lightly through dainty, scattered sound. It carefully crescendos with a patient surging of sounds, filling the space without losing the fragility that makes the album so captivating. Just as with the track that follows (Come And Go), there are numerous points when the reverberated swirling of the guitars dance so violently with Kranz's wistful vocals that the sound begins to swell sizably, almost swallowing the delicacy whole, but the duo's restraint pulls everything back at just the right moments.

This subdued blend of lo-fi indie-folk and dream pop has been put together with such commendable discretion. The Wolves is hauntingly complex; yet still sounds effortless and organic, making it nothing short of a masterpiece.