Artist: Young Prisms
Title: In Between
Record Label: Kanine
Rating: 9.5

Have you ever had the kind of day when you’re so swathed in grey misery that all you can do is lie on the floor and wish you’d just stop breathing? This record makes it all better.

In their new album, In Between, Young Prisms have managed to harness summertime and pour it into a CD that absolutely blew me away.

The album opens with “Floating in Blue”, a beautiful song that draws the listener into a world of tree forts and blissful ignorance of mortgages. The next track, “Dead Flowers”, makes me think that if the Cure were to have a sweet summer affair with An April March and the Jesus and Mary Chain, this band would
be the three-way love child that would spring forth. Densely layered with melodic vocals and reverb pedal
effects, Young Prisms revisit early dream-pop while maintaining a unique voice of their own.I hear a lot of Cure influence on this record, though it’s more early Cure than anywhere near the Bloodflowers album: this is Robert Smith when he still liked Creamsicles and reading comics in bed; when music was still fresh and new and beautiful and not an utter drag.“Better Days” is a perfect example of this, as after the first few chords, you fully expect the song to blossom into a cover of “Pictures of You”, but
instead you have something far better: a stunning combination of great lyrics and the blend of masculine
and feminine vocals.

When I heard the ninth track on the CD, I was lying on my couch and thinking that Rob Dickinson would
freaking love this song—a song that practically screams of Catherine Wheel’s crunchy guitars and dreamy
vocals —when I looked at the title and had to laugh aloud. “To Touch You”, is the title of the track. Ode to Black Metallic perhaps? Same chords, different progressions, and so gorgeous. Whether intentionally or not, Young Prisms have managed to capture the “wall of sound” that was so prevalent with late 80s/early 90s shoegazer alt rock. Maybe my musical tastes are still firmly entrenched in 1994 and I’m somewhat biased, but I absolutely loved every single track on this CD.Magic exists in the in-between spaces, and this new release couldn’t be more aptly named.Listen to this album. Go outside and look at the stars without a carefully cultivated moue of disdain or aura of false ennui. Write someone a letter: a real one, with a pen and your own handwriting and complete sincerity.

Remember how it feels to let music makes you soar.

Written by Lana Winter