Whirr

With their two albums to date, Bay Area, CA's six-piece Whirr has developed a reputation for dirgeful shoegaze, buttressed with textured layers or guitar and weighty, driving compositions. Spacious and moody, their 2012 LP, "Pipe Dream," drew comparisons to heavyweights of the genre My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive. Now, Whirr returns with "Around," an LP that finds the group restrained and perhaps even a bit darker. Here, they explore longer songs, with their shortest clocking in at just under six minutes. Catchy melodies, traditionally a part of the band's wheelhouse, give way here to a droning ambience, shifting Whirr slightly from their shoegaze core toward a dour post-rock sound.