As Good As Gone

2009 release. Nudge returns with a slow burning full-length of sounds perfect for the dying days of the summer's swelter. The varied stylistic shifts of previous material have garnered their fair share of comments regarding a schizophrenic nature, but here the experimental lean of the group is placed to deliver it's most cohesive sound to date. Masterfully blurring the music's entangled live and programmed approaches to the point of imperceptibility, layer upon layer of synth, guitar and vocals are draped over skeletal Pop structures and anchored by Dub basslines born of resin-stained fingers. Covered in an electric blanket of atmosphere that can surely only come from years in outer space memorizing the top of one's shoes, the gothic trappings reveal themselves as hard-earned circles beneath the eyes as opposed to poorly applied hot topic nail polish. As Good As Gone is a proper album whose arc is intended to be absorbed stem to stern.