Mazzy Star: Among My Swan

The success of Mazzy Star's drowsy aural wallpaper—and in particular, its gorgeous 1994 single "Fade Into You"—gave hope to lots of worthy, struggling bands that play beautiful but quiet pop music. (Low springs immediately to mind.) It's gratifying to know that music as dazed and pretty as Mazzy Star's, with its simultaneous cloudiness and clarity, can find an audience. That said, the duo's new third album, Among My Swan, rarely makes effective use of singer Hope Sandoval's gorgeous, crystalline, woozy-with-desire voice. The songs move at a tranquilized pace, which is to be expected, but with the exception of a few tracks ("All My Sisters," "Roseblood"), they don't pull off the swaying, dramatic, lonely-at-4 a.m. impact the band was going for. There's nothing necessarily wrong with Mazzy Star's single-minded loyalty to sloth and quietude, but Among My Swan gets sort of dirgelike after a while, and it rarely matches the shimmering beauty of She Hangs Brightly or the best songs on So Tonight That I Might See.