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“Yr New Shoes”, the A-side to their latest pair of singles, shared with “Moon Eyes”, takes its time. Starting with a slow, almost lazy guitar part, Tara Gabriella-Engelhardt eases into a delicate verse that recounts a post-breakup conversation with painstaking specificity.
“It’s more sparse because I’m really picky about the words I use,” says Finn Cohen-Ennis, who spearheaded the composition of the single. “There aren’t loads of lyrics… I think because I’m not a powerful singer and I need the time to breathe.” He sounds self-deprecating, but Gabriella-Engelhardt is quick to jump in: “I really love your songwriting,” she asserts. “I appreciate space way more than I ever used to.”
On “Yr New Shoes”, it feels like it’s negative space, specifically. Each gap on the song – whether it’s between breaths, or lyrics, or even drum beats – draws the one preceding it into contrast, creating a haze of sensation for the listener to delve into. One part Mazzy Star, one part early My Bloody Valentine, and several parts a newer, lovely sound. “I would love to go and see [My Bloody Valentine] play that compilation album of all their EPs and singles,” says Lewis Johnson-Kellett, somewhat wistfully.
With co-producer Seadna McPhail, Adjustments have created a song that benefits from their loose and unconventional approach to writing and recording. It unfurls itself further with each listen.
The group’s complementary parts are clear even in conversation, where their mutual admiration and affection shines through, and this equilibrium is reflected in the song, too. Each offsets the other, with Gabriella-Engelhardt’s vocals balancing out the jangly-sounding guitars of Cohen-Ennis and Johnson-Kellett. They move with deliberate slowness into a faster-paced chorus that introduces Cohen-Ennis’s voice too, before launching into a simple, powerful guitar solo. Then, as quickly as it escalated, the song peters off, washing out like a tide. It would almost be anti-climactic if it didn’t sound so good.
They’ve got more stuff in the pipeline: a single with Welsh band Bwgibwgan in February, and they’re itching to play more gigs, too. Mostly, though, they’re excited to get back in the studio. “When we’re not gigging, we definitely just turn our attention more to the craft,” says Johnson-Kellett. ‘I’m really excited to get more of the songs recorded… I love that process.”
Craft is the right word, certainly. Adjustments have managed to create a sound that is careful without being laboured. It makes for an unequivocally lovely listen.
English (US) · 