White Flowers - Day By Day

This debut record by Preston duo White Flowers came together over the course of a few years, and it sounds like it, too; glacially paced, the ten tracks on ‘Day by Day’ were apparently inspired by the band’s return north after a spell as art students in London. Sonically speaking, though, it appears instead to have taken most of its cues from the dream-pop canon. Comparisons with Beach House are inescapable on a level that goes much deeper than their boy-girl pairing and enigmatic aesthetic; everything from their woozy guitar tone and skyward synths to Katie Drew’s swooning vocals and the general sense of the ethereal on ‘Day by Day’ recalls the Baltimore outfit. Jez Williams of Doves is perhaps an unlikely candidate for the role of producer, but he imbues the record with a subtle varnish - polished, but not overly bright. The tracks are built to the same profile - swirling electronics, crisp percussion, cooed turns from Drew - with ‘Night Drive’ and ‘Stars’ in particular possessing the feel of quietly unsettling lullabies, ones that would have made White Flowers shoe-ins at Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse. In actuality, though, the most interesting moments emerge when they push beyond these self-imposed parameters; the sprawling soundscape of the title track, for instance, or the unpredictable, shape-shifting ‘Portra’, which evokes Portishead. This is a slick debut, albeit one that suggests better is to come if White Flowers can get out from under the weight of their influences.