BloodWIRE- Transformation

Moody pop duo BloodWIRE is composed of married couple Shawn Brice (formerly of Battery) and I-Li Chang. While the dreamy, reverb-soaked guitars and multi-layered vocals on such tracks as “Boardwater” or the jazzy groove of “Remains” might at first seem reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins, Chang’s voice is a lot more grounded than Liz Fraser’s, less dizzyingly weird and thus a lot more emotionally accessible. Brice’s production work is also immediate and easy to relate to. His electronic roots shine through in the soft ambience of “Spring To Life” or the melodic trip-hop rhythm of “Hallway,” but the mixture of Chang’s vocal immediacy and judiciously placed guitars keep this from trailing off into indulgent laptop territory. “Absence,” for example, starts off as a delicate ballad laced with minimal keyboards and drum machines, but bursts to life with strummed guitars, while the mixture of synthesizer and slow, wall-of-sound chords on “Relinquish” call to mind the best moments of Curve. With the current spate of black-clad pop punks in mainstream radio, BloodWIRE hearkens back to bands like Garbage and the Cure that were able to create dark-edged, introspective music that still had popular appeal. Make no mistake, though; BloodWIRE has a thoroughly modern sound that’s all their own, and it’s superb.

Visit Shawn and I-Li online at www.bloodwire.com