‘And thoughts then automatically cock back to Empty Pools, and their fascination with detonations, gunpowder plottings, and so forth. Branded “a really legitimate rock’n’roll band” by Menomena themselves, the Bristol ensemble blew ‘em clean out the water and whilst tonight’s headliners seem increasingly devoid of invention, their understudies are brimming with confidence and filling with a most crystalline promise.’
Dots & Dashes review the two live in London…
‘Hot property bolting out the blocks, Bristol’s Empty Pools filled many a heart and equivalent internet with glee when they dropped Vanderbilt Cup a few months back. Seemingly fully formed yet encore a little raw, the four-piece instilled a quite irrepressible hope absolutely instantaneously, and Exploded View is a commensurately eruptive listen that has the bona fide feel of a single in the most traditional of senses. Not the sort you’d pick up ensnared in slimline jewel case among the Pick n’ Mix but that which you’d effervesce at the teeth for once slathered over 7”, and that it was unleashed on the interweb at precisely 2pm this afternoon (June 20th) contributes not only a sense of suspense but also of restricted excitement; of dammed frothage. As with Vanderbilt Cup, there’s an invigorating fidget to it, an angst almost as cascading Greenwood-esque guitars sear through the mucky tumble of Holy Bible-era Manics with the caustic burn of acid rain. We can but hope that once it rains it pours and that ever more material isn’t too far away…’
‘I first became acquainted with Empty Pools’ lead vocalist Leah Pritchard in the alluring glow of one of Butlin’s myriad claw cranes, some unsightly winnings in hand and an odious jingle ringing in both ears. It therefore serves as little surprise subjectively that Vanderbilt Cup, the first track to fall from the Bristol quartet’s Soundcloud, is an erudite affair littered with astute pop culture references (The Dark Is Rising, the Gates of Eden, etc.) that stream perfectly into the track’s fluid aesthetic. They’re intertwined with the tale of Patti Smith’s abstruse emotional rapport with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and allegorically situated in Mapplethorpe’s native Floral Park, Queens. Although more leafy outpost of suburban New York than verdant park per se (“Said it was good to come from ‘cause it’s good to leave” if Empty Pools are to be believed), elements of Vanderbilt Cup may be equated to the forces of nature and such like: its spindly, finger-y guitars recall withered wintry branches outstretched into cold, dark nights; its release is bolstered by sturdy bass root notes; and Pritchard’s vocals evoke those of Carrie Brownstein at their most spring and sprightly. Thus if lyrically concerning the pitfalls of contradiction around which the privileged creative may tiptoe, musically it morphs and evolves cyclically, a little like seasonal change therefore. And indeed were the moniker a nod to Williamsburg’s Pool Parties of yore and the Brooklyn phenomenon were ever refilled with life anew, you’d certainly hope for Empty Pools to be poured into the ruckus…’
