By Kimberly Manning | February 1st, 2011
San Francisco natives Young Prisms recently released their full-length debut Friends for Now, chock full of gazy rhythms, overlapping beats, and unproduced, gritty instrumentals. Using airy vocals as a background instrument, Young Prisms successfully incorporate everything that is shoegaze.
Sun-soaked beats and rigid garage-band guitar licks smother vocalist Giovanni Betteo’s taunting rhythms while producing lo-fi tunes that the quintet has been known for since their debut EP in 2009.
The psychedelic dance tune “If You Want To” is a continual repetitive instrumental set with distant chanting vocals. Seeming to be a second intro, the circular beats set up for a common thread throughout the album. Young Prisms also make sure to add some scattered thoughts in there as well. After a slow chant “I’m still high / I’m still alive” in “Sugar,” the band manipulates the harmonized vocals and speeds up the pace, making you feel as though you are indeed on a sugar high.
This album is hypnotizing and fun, just like it’s supposed to be. Moving through a continual circle, Young Prisms make a point that their soothing and calm music can be just right for warm night with a drink in hand, gazing out onto the ocean.