Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

This is the third full-length release for Portland, Oregon-based Liz Harris. Harris might have achieved a significant fan base thanks to the whispering, near-ambient vocal crusades of her debut album Way Their Crept and its follow-up Wide, but those with a careful ear would have heard slightly more trapped beneath her fuzzy chain of effects. Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill marks a departure of sorts for Liz, which sees her turn down the fuzz boxes which caged (and to some degree defined) her sound and allows her voice to ring out above everything else. It is an album steeped in the world of dream-pop -- a genre pioneered by the likes of Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil -- and far from shying away from the reference, Liz has instead grabbed on with both hands, creating an album's worth of perfect, left-field pop songs. Using delicate song structures which are at once both familiar and somehow alien, her vocals cry out hauntingly over stripped-down guitar lines and looped environmental recordings. Just listen to "I'd Rather Be Sleeping," a track that could be a mournful take on Belly, albeit with a more fragile heart. These unforgettable harmonies and vocal lines that embed themselves into your consciousness before you even realize it are the key to the album's success and the reason why it makes such a lasting impression. There is something to Liz Harris' music that defies time and makes you sit up and listen. These are the future soundtracks to love, despair and ultimately, hope.