New York Music Daily - "Sparse Illumination" Album Review

“This is not set-it-and-forget-it delay pedal rehash. Strong drums and lush guitars.” Blackout Transmission’s jangly, atmospheric debut album Sparse Illumination is streaming at Bandcamp.

They open with a slow, echoey spacerock instrumental, Once There: it could be one of the short, vampy pieces that the Church would end an album side, or begin one with, back in the 80s. That comparison may seem like impossible hype, but this 4-piece nail the Australian legends’ blend of lush clang and drifting textures in several tracks here. The tense, anxiously pulsing chords as the icy Heavy Circles gets underway, and the anthemic, ringing peaks and valleys of Verdant Return, in particular, are a delicious throwback to albums like Seance and Sometime Anywhere.

Since She Guided You Away is a loping Laurel Canyon psychedelic anthem through the prism of the 80s, with its layers of buzz, burn and drift, the missing link between the Church and, say, the Allah-La’s. Likewise, Tactile Responses comes across as the Cure’s Robert Smith staring at the desert sand. And the band loop a Seventeen Seconds-style riff for the most hypnotic, shoegazy number here, Pacifica.

The dancing bassline and echoey guitar trails in Portals are straight out of the Brian Jonestown Massacre playbook. The band go back to the Church again to close the record with Sleepwalking Again, Anthony Salazar’s restlessly tumbling drums and relentlesly uneasy chord changes.

It’s all about atmosphere, and textures, and tunes, and tight, purposeful playing from a group that also comprises bandleader/guitarist Christopher Goett, lead guitarist Adam D’Zurilla and bassist Kevin Cluppert. If that resonates and reverberates with you, fire this up and get lost.