Windy & Carl are one of the most consistent groups from the 90s. Their albums rarely stray from the lush walls of soft noise of Portal (1994) and their masterpiece, and one of the greatest albums of the 90s and all time, Drawing of Sound (Icon, 1996) and all of the albums afterwards are at the very least enjoyable hours of ambient guitar and synth noises, the brighter side of shoegaze and introverted indie music.
Most of their material is tentatively categorized as Romantic and cosmic psychedelia, though two releases from 2008, Songs for the Broken Hearted (Kranky) and Windy Weber’s only solo album I Hate People (Blue Flea), are in general more brooding and hateful compared to the peacefulness elsewhere.
We Will Always Be is mostly Romantic, peaceful, and optimistically beautiful. “Nature of Memory” begins like this but is weighted down by a negative strain form Windy’s bass diving deeper with a drunken nostalgic processed voice acting in response to the reserved dominant voice; like Windy’s bass and Carl’s guitar respectively; and the madcap laugh adds more negativity towards the end. This is carried over to “The Smell of Old Books” with the bellowing of a synthesizer under the dew of dreamy guitars.
The sparkling guitars in the trio “Remember”, “Spires”, “The Frost in Winter” evoke the smiles from every person who pulls that last flower pedal and recites “s/he loves me;” the smile is in deference to the unnecessary fatality of the smile, the warm feeling of acceptance and the feeling of ascension to love, that it may have perished in vain but was created for that end.
The first solo juggernaut of the album “Looking Glass” is 12 minutes of glacial ecstasy. The final track, “Fainting in the Presence of the Lord” begins as a shy inhalation of life and after 7 minutes it is 12 minutes of an epical exaltation amid an unremitting cosmic power that they reflected with their large mirrors and drew with their mad pens earlier in their career.
“For Rosa” is the opening track that is played in the drained nostalgia that is usually put at the end of an album used as a sonic period to the album’s sentence; the feeling of Gilgamesh after journeying out and reaching higher and higher only to lose Enkidu, immortality, and time and energy to add to his greatness; a modernish “Rosebud” with the fires of the guitar in the latter half of the 19 minute “Fainting in the Presence of the Lord” burning the innocence of love.
This is at least a 3.5/5.
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