I'm not sure what to make of the self-titled LP from LA's Draag. That's not a bad thing. It opens with 44 seconds of thrash / hardcore on "Richard of the Stars," and then immediately segues into shoegaze-inspired dream pop on "Tragic." If the first track caught my attention, then the second track held me as the vocals of Jessica Huang and Adrian Acosta intertwined among the sounds of chiming guitars, a driving rhythm section, and a nicely incongruous 70s-style guitar riff.
With single "You're My Boy Blue," I settled in, thinking, "OK. This is a shoegaze record, and that is fine by me." The song appears to be almost an homage to classic shoegaze at first; but then there's something about the vocals -- the way they almost imitate the "glide guitar" style made famous by Kevin Shields -- that makes things a little different.
Then, "Big Eyes, Big Lies" threw me for another loop. It's a six-plus minute excursion that rides a programmed beat as it interjects moments of noise. "Gee" is an instrumental return to the sound or tone, if not quite the feel, of that riff that popped up on "Tragic." Album closer "My First Time" is some out there, 80s-style synth pop.
Among the tags for Draag on Bandcamp, "experimental" shows up twice. Draag are definitely a band playing and experimenting with a wide array of sounds and influences. Like I said, I'm not sure what to make of them. I'm not sure if they plan to settle on a single sound or not. But, based on this LP, which works most of the time, I'm not sure if they have to.
Draag is available to stream / download at Draag's Bandcamp page. A tape is, apparently, coming soon on Higher Life.
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