Whirr- Pipe Dreams (2012)

I absolutely adored Whirr's (they were called Whirl at the time) 2010 EP Distressor, so their first full length ranked among my most anticipated albums of 2012. After having nearly a month to digest Pipe Dreams how do I feel about it? It's complicated. As I said when I did a write up on Distressor, I think Whirr are at their best when combining the walls of blissful shoegaze guitar they create with a slightly more up tempo, hook-heavy and poppier sound, "Meaningless" being the perfect example. You could call it dream pop if you were so inclined. Is that sound on Pipe Dreams? It sure is. In fact there's probably about the same ratio of dream pop to more traditional shoegaze on this album as there was on the EP, but for some reason it just hasn't grabbed me like the EP did and I don't know why. Perhaps because one of the best songs was released on a 7" last year and I was already intimately familiar with it. Maybe it's because I had been hoping that this would be an album almost entirely comprised of pop songs. Perhaps I'm just mad that after the 0:14 second mark of "Home Is Where My Head Is" they don't play the best riff on the entire album ever again. Maybe I'm just an asshole. Whatever the case may be and despite my being a complete and utter baby about this, you should listen to this album. I know it's going to grow on me. Eventually I'm going to love the shit out of this album, look back on this post marvel at how fucking dense I was. Hopefully it will grow on you too.

Try it.

Buy it:

Digital 

Physical (CD + LP @ Tee Pee Records)