Closedown is the name of two bands. The earlier Closedown was one of the earliest American shoegaze bands. They existed for only a few years in the early 1990s and released their sole album, Nearfield, in 1994. Closedown were an early American shoegaze band that released the album pictured to left called Nearfield in 1994 though the ambient/electronic dominated label Silent Records. That could possibly be a small reason as to why this album isn’t better known than it is among shoegaze fans or just music fans in general. There is a fair amount of chill electronic/ambient material throughout the album, but in a few ways Nearfield reminds me of the brilliant album Quique by Seefeel that managed to be successful in being sort of a crossover success among the underground. Nearfield isn’t that type of album, but it shares a few similarities between it that I think is neat. The album takes on the same approach using waves of light distortion off and on throughout it, slowly and meticulously introducing layer upon layer. One of my favorite tracks off the album, “Red Oval” even comes close to matching the same type of powerful pulsing monotonous beat that eventually lulls you into a trance like state after awhile and then seven minutes have just flown by. Pretty solid stuff if you ask me. Nearfield is sort of an album of halves though, partly made up of slowly rising mood driven ambient pieces and then the glisten and sparkle of something similar to that of Slowdive, which they do very well I might add. I definitely recommend this to fans of that dreamier type of sound check this out. The later Closedown was formed in central Quebec in early 2003 but could really call themselves Closedown since mid 2004. The band is now known as a unique blend of loud experimental and psychedelic rock, a violent and melodic hardcore, and an original way of converging electronic and acoustic guitars. A style one could call electro-hardcore. The guys in Closedown immediately impressed with their willingness to crush conventional logic and to push themselves into new artistic directions instead of opting for the more marketable sounds of today. With strong psycho-social lyrics, deep honest words and clear ideas, their first CD/EP, released in 2005, has been distributed world wide. They are now ready to tour year-round to show-off what they are made of. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.