Detroit duo, Clinic Stars, make their long-playing debut on Kranky. The album, Only Hinting, is beautiful blissed-out stuff. The press release very poetically describes the songs and sounds as revelling “in the romance of longing”, and there is an overwhelming sense of searching for and falling in love. The music is a marvellous, melodic mix of classic `80s and `90s indie-rock references. Kissing Through The Veil conjures My Bloody Valentine’s quieter moments. Densely layered, but lighter than air, its softly strummed guitars and ethereal vocals softened further with heavy reverb.

The title track could be a Cocteau Twins outtake. Dramatic Treasure-era drums crashing through its breathless whispers and Robin Guthrie-esque wall of guitar-generated shimmer. Something about Remain summons The Smiths’ swansong and Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’s slow, sad waltz. The tambourine tapping, 3-chord raga, She Won’t Be suggests a sensitive Slowdive channelling The Velvet Underground. The treble is always attention-grabbing, but the bass-lines are also bold. 

In places the pieces’ protagonist might be worshiping from afar, their object of desire completely unaware of their feelings. I Am The Dancer, for example, is extremely evocative, cinematic even. Sending me spinning, flashing back to my late teens, early 20s, when through a constant fug of booze and drugs I fell head over heels on sight, ten times a night, and still ended up on my own. Hypnotic, sighing, seductive and gently swaying, it has me recalling all the self-mythologising, and drunk on nostalgia, knocked unsteady on my feet.

The overall “vibe”, however, is caught up in young, passionate, but ultimately doomed love. Its tone that of persons totally rapt, to the point where the world outside disappears. Playing on memories of mad, crazy days / daze when the only care is for the other, and the only worry is how much they care. Telling a tale of innocents consumed by a flame that will burn too brightly, too quickly, starve itself of oxygen, and burn itself out. The sort obsession we’re lucky to be blessed by perhaps only once, before wounds and hard-earned wisdom teach us to toughen up and become a tad more careful with our hearts.

Clinic Stars’ Only Hinting is out now on Kranky.