Dora Flood

We Live Now

(Elephant Stone)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

Shoegazing dream pop from San Francisco—you think you know what you’re going to get. Think again.  This ain’t some airy, breathy slide into some other planet’s atmosphere. This is your gritty and rough and heavy dream pop, closer to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club than Swervedriver; they may be staring at their shoes, but them shoes are nice and dirty. There are some drifts into a nice Spacemen 3 / Loop sonic drone, but without it taking over the whole song – just a taste here and there before the band kicks back into some StonerGazer groove. Dora Flood is pushing ahead while dragging the past along with them. Trippy light shows and hanging out in the ‘60s gets kicked up a notch and a few decades to a sonic assult and swirled guitars slipping over harmonizing vocals and driving rhythms. The songs do lapse into a hypnotic flow once in awhile, but the fuzz of the guitar always scoops you up and out of the psychedelic guitar waves and throws you headfirst into the next song. The third track, “Feels Like Yesterday,” almost does feel like yesterday. Like some drawn out Doors solo before the inevitable freak-out. Like a Jefferson Airplane flashback tied to a Ride-inspired brit-pop jam. The next song moves a few steps over, getting all blues-grooved and snarly, like a Louisiana bad-trip, but man… the music can save you. So keep listening. Dora Flood washes over you and pulls you along, slides you through—an adventure that ends on a slow and mellow but spaciously beautiful song titled “Light.”