Pink Playground: Destination Ecstasy

Shoegazer act Pink Playground was last seen on a 10” record on Regis’s Downwards label. Now, the group is releasing its first full length on the ultra-hip Mexican Summer label. It’s too bad there’s little to show for these breaks beyond a serious fetish for hazy, early 90s feedback-laced guitar pop. The only thing that really distinguishes the band from other retro-maniacal neo-dreampop acts is the way they apply copious amounts of reverb to the mix to further muffle the vocals and distance the melodies. This style of music is already quite clouded, and Pink Playground obscures itself practically to oblivion. When the group opens the album with “Fuck The World”, the title is not an angry scowl, but an open legs invitation to universal erotic communion. Despite a couple decent non-revolutionary tunes (“Sunny Skies, “Dark Bloom”), Pink Playground seems too far away, too removed, and too in debt to its predecessors to make good on this offering.