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Album Details

• Artist: Hall of Fame
• Album: Paradise Now
• Label: The Social Registry
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: bbuckingham on 2005-03-09

Multi-instrumentalist Samara Lubelski had a busy year in 2004. Her stunning second solo album "The Fleeting Skies", appearances on some Tower Recordings releases, and "Paradise Now," the third full-length release by the Brooklyn-based psych-folk trio Hall Of Fame.

Hall Of Fame specializes in writing beautiful melodies wrapped around soundscapes that borrow from krautrock, british-isles folk, avant-drone and pure sound. On "Paradise Now," the gap between the avant garde and structured song forms is bridged with a musicality and craftsmanship that is sadly lacking from the efforts of many acts in the New Weird America space.

Warm electric guitars, distant strings, hazy vocals and muted, spacious drums are the focal point of the bulk of songs. Lubelski's voice is particularly haunting on "Endless Returns," which starts like Pentangle on quaaludes and ends in a swirl of Faustian drones and plinking guitars.

The intimate, fuzzy production and the sheets of glorious sound manipulation cause the tracks meld together into a sprawling, miasmic fog of sound. Not a complaint at all - Paradise Now is a beautiful head trip that deserves a healthy piece of the attention that has been cast on the psych-folk underground.

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