Stroom wade into some unexpected waters with this debut LP by Richard, a dreampop-meets-emo coded heart-on-sleeve collection of bedroom confessionals pitched somewhere between ML Buch and - who had this on their bingo card? - Pinback (full disclosure: I picked up this comparison via a Bandcamp user review, but credit where it’s due, they’re right on the money). There’s little biographical information available on our titular ‘Richard’, though the music they make is plenty revealing in itself, hyper earnest and openly personal, the very DNA of the record written vividly in that ardent title. Your enthusiasm for Loving You To Death will likely hinge on your capacity for such impassioned declarations, though if you find yourself a little weary with the weltschmerz and wondering if that latest infatuation is either fate or simply fated, this could be the one for you, and especially so should you also have a penchant for midwest guitar dynamics, post-Dean Blunt lo-fi pop and the kind of dreamy introversion that dominated the blogosphere (remember that?) circa the end of the first decade of this century. Not exactly the classic ‘Stroom sound’ (whatever that is at this point), but certainly right on the zeitgeist money. No surprises there…
FFO: ML Buch, Pinback, Beach Fossils, Milan W, Wild Nothing
