Value Void - Sentimental (Tough Love) 2018
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Sentimental is Value Void’s pummeling to the heart of youthful reflectance and city doldrums. Solemn is the heart of Sentimental, with a lot of heart being thrown in a gutsy jangle of minimalism—it’s a touch of the Raincoats with a similar emotive to fellow contemporary trio Girl Ray. The record is both music for secondary school woes and mid-twenties heartache; a reverb of a sigh in “Bariloche” turns into a spindle of head-dizzying confound guitar—translating emotions into plaintive guitars and rhythms, whereas “Teen For Him” provides a self-identification of blossoming naïveté, as vocalist/guitarist Paz Maddio questions lovelorn in a mix of British and Argentine dialect with Valley Girl declaration: “I’m so teen for him—and oh my god, that’s new!” Ending the record with the dismal elegy “Dead Ladies Lament,” the Buenos Aires-born and London-based band prove on their debut record that their kind of sentimentality is universal.