Drenched in atmosphere, Laveda’s Troy Creeps seeps into your ears with glittering acoustics married to bruised and cracked vocals.
You can hear Laveda’s influences, which include the Sundays, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, in the slow beauty that gradually unfurls here. Layered guitars and pounding drums build to the song’s wall-of-noise shoegaze dream-pop climax.
Founded by duo Ali Genevich (vocals/guitar) and Jake Brooks (vocals/guitar/synths), Laveda released their debut album, What Happens After, in 2020. Through the summer and autumn of 2021, Genevich and Brooks spent most of their time in Los Angeles, working with producer Dylan Herman on Laveda’s second album. The pair have looked to leverage a level of lyrical vulnerability that will be familiar to fans of artists like Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy. Together with their full live band, appearing on this album for the first time, Laveda combine their lyrics with the expansive soundscapes on display here, on Troy Creeps.
Troy Creeps is the perfect vehicle to show off Ali Genevich’s vocal abilities, and she describes the song as embodying “a long night spent alone with your thoughts”. On the song’s unusual title (which I struggle to not read as “Tory creeps”), Brooks says:
“When I made this demo I had just moved to a small apartment in Troy, NY. You could always hear everyone’s conversations if they were outside on that street. People were screaming at each other about something while I was recording, so the name stuck.”
Check out Troy Creeps below, and look out for Laveda’s forthcoming sophomore album, A Place You Grew Up in, due 14 April on PaperCup Music.