The atmosphere on Until The Hunter, Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions’ third album, is hauntingly familiar. This isn’t a bad thing, there’s often solace and affection to be found in familiarity. Arguably, the album delivers what Sandoval fans crave – more of the same genre-defining dream pop psychedelia that propelled Mazzy Star to success in the early 1990s. Rather than tinker with Sandoval’s trademark sound, Sandoval and collaborator Colm Ó Cíosóig of My Bloody Valentine tread familiar territory.
The Peasant and Treasure exemplify this adherence to familiar form. Both are drowsy, meandering songs, drifting through a swirling fog of oscillating keys and shimmering slide guitar. Heard on its own Let Me Get There, a duet with Kurt Vile, comes across as overly sentimental and mawkish, but in the context of the album it lifts the pace and is a welcome palate cleanser.
The last half of the album veers off in a different direction. I Took A Slip and Isn’t It True exist within an acoustic folk framework. Here we revisit the pastoral fields of Bron-Yr-Aur.
The album closes with Liquid Lady: a stately doo-wop number that envelops the listener in a hazy reverie, full of seduction and temptation.
By George Hyde
