Sore Eros - 'Second Chants' (SHDWPLY Records) Released 27/07/09

Commitment to lo-fi values can signal starkly contrasting characteristics. Either it indicates the arrival of a slightly loopy genius whose artistic vision is way too out-there and uncontrollably prolific to bow down to such conventional, conservative niceties as production values and polish. Or else it’s the tell tale sign of outlandish laziness, the get-out-of-jail-free catchword sonic slackers can brandish whilst masquerading woeful lack of substance and finesse with a listener-hostile abundance of tape hiss and aimless off-kilter noises.

Robert Robinson, the Connecticut-based one man band behind Sore Eros, balances precariously between these extremes. It’s almost as if ‘Second Chants’ – Robinson’s first properly released full-length after some self-released platters and membership of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – is the work of two different artists, one specialising in infectious odd-pop magic powered by sublime songcraft coated in generous lashings of homespun bewilderment, the other indulging in mumbled, fragmented, lackadaisical aimlessness of a monumentally patience-exhausting variety.

Thankfully, the more rewarding part of this Jekyll and Hyde act wins with a comfortable margin. Early reports have pitched ‘Second Chants’ somewhere in the region of Panda Bear’s caressing hug of a record ‘Person Pitch’, but it’s closer to Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox’s hazy, mystifying solo output under the Atlas Sound guise in spirit and aural identity. ‘Second Chants’ is a similarly slippery beast, with instruments and voices stumbling in and out of the murky mix without much discernible logic, songs crashing into what seems like a premature end, the whole unsteady, dreamlike cavalcade of haphazardly layered sounds wavering like it’s forever balancing on the brink on total collapse, held together only by a couple of rusty screws and the author’s severely sapped 3am reserves of willpower.

Although both ‘Smile on Your Face’ – bouncy psych-pop on a budget, ala early Caribou – and ‘In My Heart’ – deformed, bleary-eyed chant-balladry at its finest - are powerful stuff, ‘Whisper Me’ provides the highlight. Just when you thought the track’s sunshine pop couldn’t get any prettier, a jangling late period Velvet Underground guitar figure kicks in and promptly fades, only to return moments later, this time distinctly out of tune. Before you know, the multilayered vocals venture towards the de-toned ditch also, almost as if Robinson had decided he couldn’t quite allow something this straightforwardly wonderful to tarnish his warped creation. Beguiling, assured and beautiful, but amateurish, sloppy and frustrating also, it’s a fitting summary of this hugely promising platter.