Review Summary: Vibes & Adjectives
Crystal Shores’ recipe is beautifully simplistic. You take one (1) French producer dude, a framework of heavenly dream pop, and just enough electronic flourishes to elevate each lavish moment to the next level. The result? Vibes. Nothing but v i b e s.
VIQ’s music is so ridiculously delightful it makes me want to pull out my inner thesaurus and list every single wonderful semi-synonym for ‘relaxed’. Whether this be ‘breezy’, ‘lush’, possibly even, sigh, ‘chillaxed’: it all fits perfectly. The entirely instrumental
Crystal Shores is on a constant quest to achieve as much serenity as possible, packaging its elegance in highly accessible, four-minute tracks. Each song presents a tiny blissful moment, drifting through sparkling guitars and elusive rhythms, capable of capturing one’s full attention as much as purely underscoring any given beautiful experience. Early album highlight ‘Illusion’ engulfs its indie rock in bubbly electronic clouds, highlighting the wonderful haze of sound by contrasting it with higher tones and pulsating drums as the song comes to a deeply peaceful conclusion.
True to its theme,
Crystal Shores finds VIQ occasionally inserting sonic splashes of calmly crashing waves and remote seagulls catching a breeze. Subsiding as the album’s organic melodies return, inclusions of such sonic components are as unobtrusive as they are crucial to achieving the palpably lively, peaceful atmosphere. While no one element of the record is all-encapsulating by its own merits, the amalgamation of sophisticatedly serene vibes are deeply absorbing yet entirely low-key at all times. ‘Dreaming Outloud’ provides a small burst of energy towards the record’s end, before ‘Wandering Time’ concludes on a beautifully reverb-soaked final intertwining of sparkling guitars and synths. Call it a strawberry lemonade on a hot day, call it the sight of, eh, a tiny squirrel in a vast green field:
Crystal Shores is a small, unsuspecting component capable of brightening that which was already glistening, and comfortably embedding itself into any hint of tranquility.
