Artist: Desert Hearts Title: Let's Get Worse Label: Tugboat/ Inertia Sounds Like: The startled offspring left alone when the daydream nation dissolved RIYL: Sonic Youth, The Pixies, LWB, The Bats, The Chills There are one or two moments a year when you get that feeling. Listeners and reviewers alike will know what I’m on about, that chill up the spine, that urge to grin, that sheer blast of sonic love that spirals out of control, from the speakers to your ears, when you hear a CD that you know is special. It’s when all the bullshit fades, when shit like boy bands in space, passes beyond absurdity into obscurity, and you realise that even though this is the first time you’ve heard a set of songs, they’ve set themselves inside your consciousness. It’s when you know you want music like this to be the soundtrack to your life, instead of the shite that someone inevitably rolls out come Saturday night. And Let’s Get Worse, the debut release for this young Belfast band, is one of those musical gifts that makes trying to craft a living in the creative industries so worth while. It’s not apparent in the first song, "DSR", until two minutes in, when something shifts and what sounds like a jangley Cranberries offcast, turns into something better, sharper, darker - “Kickstart, kickstart” in male and female voices echoing the now-departed Prolapse. There’s a triangle even, and then finally, that distorted post-feedback squashy-squelch (Sonic Youth made it famous on Daydream Nation’s “Providence”) kicks in, leading into "136", a beat, a twang and then oh my god, it’s wall of sound guitars all round, filling up the room. It dips, it drops, there’s maybe a brass instrument that pipes through, and then slowly, inchingly, then batter-bang-thwack and the guitars are back, louder than you thought possible for a four piece, and no voices, just noise. Then it’s gone again, and we’re back into a softly picked guitar, slight riotous background turning into "Florida Keys", a piano-laced almost-pop piece of melodic sadness about deserts, getting lost, being lost and “locusts and wild honey”. It may sound ridiculous but these guys make it real, their refrain of “locusts” breathed until the chorus, “Where are you in the world/I can’t see you anywhere/(I wanna go/I wanna go) Grand canyon/ Forest Fire/ Muscle Beach, California.” If you’re thinking Desert Hearts have injected Sonic Youth, I don’t think you’d be far wrong - but they’re no Xerox. There’s something more here, almost sweet in the way the two voices intertwine, and then they back away, the drums take over and we’re left behind in an exhaust of guitars being broken down by the strum. And yeah, we’re only 3 songs in. The rest is equally grand, as the band are joined by Life Without Buildings’ Robert Johnstone and Will Bradley. Every song is less than 240 seconds, the album over in 35 exquisite minutes. Every time you think it can’t get any better it does, the rhythm fracturing in between the mainlining of guitar and duel vocals. Let’s Get Worse is an album of attacks and seductions, accusations and admissions, all about the moments of insight found in the middle of musical tornadoes where just before you’re knocked unconscious everything makes sense. I’m rarely this enthusiastic, and it’s only June, but whoever’s making music this year should take notice of what Desert Hearts have done, because I don’t think it get’s any better than this.