Red Sparowes – At the Soundless Dawn

February 22, 2005 • Neurot Recordings

Ah, post-rock with Isis members. It's like this band was tailor-made for me back in 2005. I listened to this album quite a lot back then but it's been years since I listened to this band at all, to the point where I have pretty much forgotten what this album was like. It actually sounds a lot like what I described: instrumental post-rock structures and aesthetics with a heavier, more distorted tone; kind of like the softer Isis interludes from their later albums with a bit of a faster tempo.

As far as compared to other "heavy post-rock" bands like Russian Circles or whatnot, and even the non-heavy ones, it's relatively generic. Maybe that's just me, since I really did overdo it on this kind of thing back then, but even in 2005 when this came out it was pretty well played-out by then. There are a few true "riffs" in the album that slowly get developed and expanded on, but all too frequently the band feels kind of unfocused. I think the problem is a lack of the dynamic range that makes most post-rock good; they start off at a pretty high level and just stay there most of the time, which isn't very engaging.

But somehow I still find myself more or less enjoying this album. At the least, it's very listenable. Sometimes there will be a bass line or unison riff or a piece of atmospherics that clicks with me in just the right way. Despite my detractions above, I still think it's an album worth listening to, if not at least to learn a bit more about where post-rock was in the mid-2000s.

Thus concludes Nostalgia Week! It mostly sucked. I probably won't do it again.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress'

March 31, 2015 • Constellation Records

It feels like everything about this album that was going to be said has already been said, and it's barely out—but here you go anyway. It's fine. It's not anywhere near their best, but it'll do. Hell, it's Godspeed.

'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress' sees the band continuing the trajectory of their previous album and moving towards a more cohesive rock sound: lots of in-unison playing, a more standard drumming style, more melody than usual—also, more drone than usual, with two harsh and dissonant drone pieces breaking up the first and last songs. Having heard this piece a couple times before in its live iteration on a few bootlegs, nothing here is surprising to me, and for anyone who's heard 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! nothing should be surprising to them, either. And like 'Allelujah it feels a bit short, a bit like a long EP—not quite as satisfying as one might hope. (Then again, the riff that comes in around the six-minute mark of "Piss Crowns Are Trebled" makes all that buildup totally worth it.)

But it's still a decent enough release. Yes, so it could have done all sorts of things. It could have been longer. It could have had more interesting drones. It could have had more samples and field recordings. It could have had multi-suite arrangements. It could have been the next F♯A♯∞. It could have cured cancer. But it didn't do any of those things, and that's okay. It does what it set out to do, and it does a good job at it.

For anyone who's never heard Godspeed before, this is a decent enough place to start. 'Allalujah might be a better one. But it's streaming, so go for it.

Shahman – Demise of a Body

October 16, 2014 • Dismal Niche Tapes

Usually I prefer to listen to (and review) music without too much unnecessary context, but Demise of a Body is one release where it adds a whole lot to the experience. These two tracks are more than just an EP—they're like an event, a service. The music is in tribute to the musicians' mother who had recently died, and they do a great job at conveying that.

There are two parts: The opener is a spoken poetry piece backed by some meandering '70s synth; nothing fancy but it serves as an excellent opener and really puts the listener in the right mood. But the real meat of the EP is the second track, which is this slow, plodding, minimalist doom-rock kind of thing; there's this nice tribal drumming and layers of good guitar work that just wash around each other in a very hypnotic way. I didn't listen to the album this way but I bet it would be excellent for one of those lights-out-nighttime-headphone sessions, just getting totally immersed in this music.

Of course it could all be that (as I've said before) I'm a huge fan of anything that's just devastatingly sad, and this is certainly up there with the saddest. The simple, pure, realness of the whole presentation really seals the deal. But even that aside it's still a great chunk of music, so go listen to it already.

City of Heracleion – City of Heracleion

March 20, 2014 • Futurerecordings

Ah, post-rock—you are a strange thing indeed. Every time I dismiss the genre as old and boring and played-out, I find something different that puts a fresh spin on my perspective.

Which is kind of funny since City of Heracleion is a bit of a throwback to the days of long, suite-oriented pieces like Godspeed's first two albums: two long twenty-minute pieces focused on slow, extensive atmosphere-building and textural exploration. And they do a pretty good job at it, too; the soft-build-loud-soft-build-loud paradigm is milked pretty hard but they know where to put things and how they play off each other, along with some great melodies as well.

There aren't many surprises when it comes to the instrumentation, like the standard violin and cello, and why mess with a good thing? I'm not sure how I feel about some of the guitar, though; at a few points it's very heavy and distorted and cuts through the mix, and so feels a little bit overbearing and a bit out of place. On the other hand, the clean guitar sounds great, very spacey, without drowning the listener in layers of overdub or extraneous reverb. There's also a little bit of noisy, atonal synths to add a bit of an alien feel to the music, which is nice though I think it could be improved even more with some noise and/or sampling.

Okay yes, it's not the most compelling music of its kind and it may not be particularly original, but I think it does a really good job at what it sets out to do. And I don't mind a bit of throwback to old Godspeed (the music that made me fall in love with post-rock in the first place). It's great to put on and just kind of fade out to. I need to try to find more stuff like this to listen to.

Valerinne – Arborescent

December 14, 2013 • self-released

As I've stated before, I don't listen to a lot of post-rock anymore. I overdid it some time ago and there's plenty of other kinds of music I'd rather explore these days. However, every once in a while I'll discover some odd band here or there that makes me wonder why I ever gave up on it; in this case, Valerinne, a Romanian trio who, though not particularly original, are making some pretty darn good music.

Well, they bill themselves as a post-rock band, but aside from the excessive reverb and delay effects, Valerinne doesn't really have much to with post-rock at all—at least, they aren't much like the overabundance of sprawling orchestral groups (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). If anything, they belong to the "fourth wave" (or however many waves we're on) of bands like Red Sparowes or Russian Circles, which are rooted in post-rock but combine it with a sort of organic, artsy, alt-rock style. I like how those other bands do it, and I like how Valerinne does it as well. There's nothing too unconventional about it, but it does provide some very satisfying listening.

The bass and drums provide a very solid rhythmic backbone for the guitar to go off on wild exploratory tangents in an almost psych-rock way, but there's enough restraint applied that it doesn't get full of itself like psych rock does. There's a relative lack of solid, memorable riffs or motifs (that I've discovered so far), as they opt instead for a soundscape-like approach, so the music can get a little dense at times and the song structures seem a little arbitrary and occasionally repetitive. But it's still definitely one of the better applications of this style that I've heard in a while (and there are some relatively upbeat and catchy bits as well—there's a little of everything, really).

So even though I don't really listen to this kind of music much anymore, I'm pleased to have had heard Valerinne. Definitely worth looking into for something to put on and just space out to.

A Silver Mt. Zion – Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything

Constellation Records • January 21, 2014

These guys have probably always been my (and likely most peoples') favorite Godspeed side-band, though I guess they're easily a standalone band in their own right, with plenty of material to their name. With Godspeed's long gestation time I'm always caught by surprise when I realize they have new stuff out, but they've been pretty consistently good lately, so I can't be too upset.

A Silver Mt. Zion (sorry, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, sheesh, come on now) continue to drift further from the more traditional post-rock of their early albums to a more real rock sound, hinted on with Kollaps Tradixionales. This is definitely one of their loudest and most raucous albums (if not the loudest and most raucous), and it's still a very unique affair. Lots of fuzzed-out guitars and heavy drumming accompany the usual string trio and Efrim's warbly vocals. There's quite a lot of melody, yet there are also parts that almost sound like they're veering on some kind of doom metal, of all things. (The sound is rare, but it's there.)

But very much like Kollaps Tradixionales, Fuck Off Get Free doesn't seem to have much meat to it. I listened to the former quite a few times, and I don't really remember a second of it, something I can't say for Horses in the Sky or 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons. The sound is good, yes, but after a while it all just kind of turns into generic post-rock-pounding and I lose track of what's going on and what I'm listening to. I'm not saying that the songwriting is bad—just not as good as I'd expect it to be.

I still like this, though. It's not revolutionary or epiphanic or anything like that, but it's pretty good. Definitely an album that can be enjoyed by not just any fan of the Godspeed family or the post-rock scene in general; I think A Silver Mt. Zion's appeal has long started to reach beyond that. But maybe a try-before-you-buy affair.

Krobak – Little Victories

July 2, 2013 • MALS

A while back, I did a scathing review of the first Krobak album The Diary of the Missed One; I was so disappointed with it that I never bothered to revisit the band. It's been some time and with a few more albums in-between, I'm happy to report that the years have been good to Krobak. Little Victories is a major step up compared to the debut and one that's quite a lot more worthwhile.

As I missed their second and third albums, there's probably a lot of development I didn't hear in the meantime, but there are still a lot of changes worth pointing out. One major one is that Krobak is now an actual band, with actual drums and actual bass (whew). Production can often make or break an album and they fortunately sound quite good here. Notable is the prominent use of violin, to the point where sometimes it's pretty much the main instrument now and the guitar hangs in the background supporting it. There is a lot of good interplay between the violin and guitar through most of the album, I think that was handled really well.

The songwriting has massively improved, as well. The generic "crescendocore" buildups and repetitive guitar vamping are gone in favor of something a bit more "song"-like (even though there still aren't vocals) that's actually quite interesting to listen to. A bit more of the Mogwai or Clann Zú school, perhaps. It's still slow and dirgey, but in a much more appealing way; it goes places, progresses.

Even though I still firmly maintain that post-rock is still pretty much a dead genre, it's clear that bands are still fully capable of making good albums in the genre, as Krobak shows here. No, it's nothing groundbreaking and I didn't expect it to be, but if it's something I'm in the mood for it definitely makes for a good listen.

6

Locrian – Return to Annihilation

June 25, 2013 • Relapse Records

Locrian is another one of those bands I'd known the name of for years but never got around to listening to them until recently. And to be honest, it turns out I wasn't really missing all that much.

Return to Annihilation is some sort of odd combination of orthodox black metal aesthetics with a drone- and post-rock-like approach. It's a very unique sound, and one that I think probably has a lot of potential, but Return to Annihilation seems a bit half-baked to me. Locrian doesn't seem to know exactly what they want to play, so they do all sorts of different things and throw them together. Sometimes it winds up working, sometimes it doesn't.

The tracks are mostly based around repitition and very subtle variance, but that leaves a lot of them feeling a bit empty and directionless—see "A Visitation...", which finally kicks off with just one minute left and promptly goes nowhere. Not all of them are like that; the title track has an interesting buildup although the way it's handled is a bit weird. "Panorama of Mirrors" probably does its structure the best, but it's so slow that it's tough to notice anything happening.

The jury's still out on the muffled, tortured screaming vocals which only slightly fit the album's aesthetics—they fit in okay with the heavier sections, of course, but against the lighter clean guitars and ambience they simply sound wrong.

It's not all bad, though; there are still some high moments. "Two Moons"' contrast of the machine drone with the steady drums and lilting guitar is actually pretty cool. The lengthy closer "Obsolete Elegies" is actually a really solid track, too, with a good atmosphere and solid finish to the album.

I guess for ambient/noise fans, this is a decent enough album, but I don't think it's really put together well enough or captivating enough to warrant more than one or two listens. I'm not writing off Locrian just yet, though; apparently The Crystal World is quite good...

5

Sigur Rós – Kveikur

June 14, 2013 • XL Recordings

I guess Sigur Rós is on their way back up. I guess the short break a couple years ago was really good for them, or maybe it was the slight lineup change (four members to three). Regardless, the pleasant return-to-form that was Valtari continues with their newest offering, with some of the best tracks they've done in a long time.

At the core it's still the same Sigur Rós we've known for years—the same brooding yet pretty melodies and vocals, the same soaring song structures, the same majestic feel. The basic post-rock-meets-dream-pop-meets-mordern-classical sound hasn't changed much, but there's loads of variation within that sound on this album. Tracks like "Brennisteinn" and "Kveikur" have a very dark and brooding tone (emulating the unsettling cover art) with some heavier production (distorted bass, industrial-style drumming, and walls of background sounds). Others have a softer and dreamier sound, like "Yfirborð" or the Takk...-like "Ísjaki". Naturally they do both very well, and is leaves this album with enough here to please everyone. All in all, it creates a very diverse listening experience that rewards close listening. (Admittedly, I like those two dark, rock-style tracks better, and it's a bit unfortunate that they're the only ones.)

The other side of that coin is that Kveikur doesn't feel quite as cohesive as most of their other albums—even Valtari—so it's kind of like just a compilation of different tracks which were all written separately without much regard for flow or consistency in atmosphere. I guess that's forgivable when just about every track is as good as these are, but it leaves the album feeling a lot less solid than, say, ( ) did. The album's sound is more song-focused than texture-focused, as opposed to the last album, and its structure as a whole has to fit that direction. It didn't really happen that well here.

Regardless, this is definitely one that will please its listeners. I guess my prediction based on Valtari that Sigur Rós haven't lost it yet was true—this is certainly might be their best album since Takk..., and though I have my doubts that they can match the peaks of their glory days in the early 2000s, who's to say?

7

Mouth of the Architect – Dawning

June 25, 2013 • Translation Loss Records

One of my favorite and one of the most underappreciated bands in the "post-metal" scene, and it's good to see they're more or less the same band they've always been with their fourth album.

One of the first things I noticed about Dawning is that it's a bit slower than their previous material, with a lot more of the post-rock sound slowly creeping its way in more noticeably. (See "Patterns"' long, tense buildup to actual metal just in the last 20% of the song; or the slight Earth-esque country twang in "The Other Son".) Fortunately the band knows how to play that well, using loads of dynamics and jumping from quiet clean bridges to pounding, heavy sludge riffs in a way that sounds very natural.

This album also includes lots of clean vocals thrown in as well, and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about them—they seem to work okay most of the time, as Dawning is a relatively melodic album to start with; however I've always loved the band's harsh vocals and hate to hear them used less often. They definitely don't subtract from the album's quality, though.

They're definitely not breaking a lot of new ground, and there are some moments that are uninspired, like the lackluster "It Swarms". But there are some equally kickass parts too that demonstrate just how well Mouth of the Architect exemplifies sludge, like "Sharpen Your Axes" or "How This Will End". Mouth of the Architect's handle on melody is probably one of the best (if not the best) among similar bands, and it really goes a long way in helping them write good, memorable material.

On the whole, Dawning doesn't satisfy in quite the same way that The Ties That Blind did, for instance (though I do think it's a step up from Quietly). But it's still definitely a good album worthy of this classic band's discography, and it's good to see that they haven't gone to crap like a lot of bands that die way before the ten-year mark.

7

Palms – Palms

June 25, 2013 • Ipecac Recordings

After a band like Isis breaks up, I imagine it'd be difficult for the members to move onto something else; how can you possibly try anything that would live up to the legacy? Palms is three-quarters ex-Isis members and one-quarter Chino Moreno of Deftones, in what should (theoretically) be one amazing supergroup. Though their debut is a little underperforming for what they have to live up to, it's not bad and there's plenty of room to move forward.

It's almost impossible to listen to Palms outside of an Isis or Deftones context, but I'll try. Essentially, the sound they're going for is a heavy-alternative-rock sort of thing with quieter post-rock-like bridges and intros. Nothing terribly groundbreaking, but for what it is, it's pretty decent. There are plenty of good riffs all around, especially the trudging heavy parts, and the vocals don't feel that out of place.

There's not much else good to say about the album, though. The songs do tend to run a bit long, though, especially with their meandering and often-repetitive structures, making the album a bit difficult to get through all at once. It kind of feels like it should be over after the third song. And the sound itself is pretty empty. With only one guitarist, there's a lot of empty space that the vocals can't really fill. Maybe this is just me trying to compare it to the thick, dense sounds of both Isis and Deftones, but Palms just comes off a bit lacking.

I can't say I'd recommend this album to anyone outside the original bands' fanbases; Palms seems like a novelty release for right now and there's really nothing interesting about it that anyone unfamiliar with Isis would appreciate. That being said, I hope they try another album because there's a lot they could do if they really wanted. It just didn't happen here.

5

The Tragedy We Live In – The Tragedy We Live In

March 1, 2013 • self-released

I'm pretty sure I'm officially tired of the whole post-rock-and-sludge-metal thing. I thought the scene was dead, but bands keep cranking out material and a lot of it turns out to just not be very good at all.

The Tragedy We Live In doesn't do it much differently from anyone else—long buildups, sandwiching breakdown riffs with some really filthy guitar sound and pounding, tom-heavy drumming. There are some outside influences leaking in, however, such as some black metal riffing and a punk edge to some of the rhythms, the drums in particular. It's a nice change, and it helps keep the album interesting (especially since there aren't vocals), but sometimes they feel a bit out-of-place. It doesn't help that the songwriting in general feels very thrown-together and it doesn't feel like the songs have any logical progression tying them up—just bits and pieces put together.

So this album feels less like an album and more like a bunch of people just kind of messing around without a clear goal. It's difficult to listen to and I don't feel like I got anything out of it. (It doesn't help that the playing is often very sloppy, which takes me right out of the experience.)

So tread with caution. (It helps that it's free.)

5

The End of the Ocean – Pacific·Atlantic

March 1, 2011 • Futurerecordings

You may remember hearing about The End of the Ocean from a concert post I made back in April. While I was there I was impressed enough with them to pick up a couple CDs they had for sale. While I won't say their studio material was as enjoyable as seeing them play live, it's definitely not bad stuff.

I know I wrote them off earlier as "crescendocore" which is often used as a pejorative, but here I think they actually do it pretty well. The style and mood is pretty reminiscent of bands like Explosions in the Sky, but the arrangements and songwriting are both more interesting. There is extended use of distorted guitar (65daysofstatic-style) and keyboards, the latter of which go very diverse with a lot of different voices used for support—strings, ambiance, etc. There are even some electronic elements like the beat in "Southern Skies".

The shorter songs are also interesting for post-rock. The opening and closing tracks both clock over ten minutes, standard stuff, but everything in between has a more urgent and polished feel to them. It's a nice contrast and it's good to see the trend of shifting away from boring buildups in post-rock (mostly) continue. Some tracks do have the problem that they don't really have a change to develop much or go anywhere, though.

It's tough to give a useful opinion on the album since I don't really listen to much post-rock anymore these days, but Pacific·Atlantic is definitely one of the better ones I've heard in a long time. Not ground-breaking or anything, but pleasant for sure.

6

Boris – Präparat

March 6, 2013 • Daymare Recordings

Normally I'd be one to jump all over a new Boris album (as happened a couple years ago), but I've been really struggling with Präparat. It's been out a few months now and after a handful of listens I'm still finding it tough to get a good handle on it, and I'm finding myself more disappointed with it than anything else.

My main issue is that it's such a disjointed affair—the first few tracks alone jump from post-rock to sludgy alt-rock to noise to shoegaze. This kind of internal inconsistency makes it really tough to get through to as a whole. Each track jolts the listener with something unexpected, and while that's sometimes a good thing, here it's not executed well at all.

Even that aside, the songs themselves simply aren't really that good. It's especially disappointing because I know Boris can do better; every one of the three albums they put out just two years ago was better than this. Even the more "traditional" rockers like "Method of Error" and "Bataille sucre"—probably the two best tracks—feel like they don't really have any purpose, as if they were just thrown together without any sense of quality control.

I guess Präparat isn't horrible; there are a few decent tracks here and there, but it's probably one of the last canon Boris albums I'd ever want to listen to. Even after at least four listens (probably a lot more), everything about it just feels empty and kind of pointless. I hope the band hasn't totally lost their focus and can come back to their senses with something solid in the future. But until then, I'll just be sticking with their older stuff.

5

Satori Ray – Sow

April 8, 2013 • self-released

I'll be honest, I was a bit surprised to see that Satori Ray did pull it off and didn't disappear into the ether after their excellent first EP Выдох... (I missed a second one in 2011, somehow). Then again, with how Sow turned out, it's a case of one slight disappointment over another.

The band still seems very unsure of themselves style-wise; just like Выдох... was a trip through several styles of indie and post-rock, Sow treads the slow, droning ambient path on two of its tracks and leaves the third for a more traditional Godspeed-style post-rock jam. And there isn't really much else to say about it. I'm definitely not as thrilled with this release as I was with their first. Where Выдох... showed a lot of originality and promise, it feels like they've taken a step backward to something a bit safer and more generic. They don't do a bad job at it, to be sure, but I can't help but feel jaded with Sow.

5

The Appleseed Cast, Muscle Worship, Ease the Medic, The End of the Ocean

April 17, 2013 • Kobo Live, Columbus, Ohio

Just another Columbus rock show, nothing terribly spectacular. Although The Appleseed Cast is apparently a much more popular band than I was aware of. Not that that's a bad thing, but there's little to be said for an overcrowded, tiny venue like Kobo was. Still an enjoyable show, I suppose.

The End of the Ocean

A local post-rock band, the sort of emotive crescendocore in the vein of Explosions in the Sky with more compelling songwriting, better riffs, and a slightly heavier feel. One of those sets where nobody else in the audience really seemed to care (they were all asleep most of the whole show anyway), but I quite enjoyed them. Lots of energy for this sort of band, and fun to watch even for an instrumental band.
8 • Tiniest Keyboard Award (Although This Moment in Black History's Might Have Been Smaller, It's Hard to Say)

Ease the Medic

Another local band, this time with a more emo-meets-post-hardcore sound, a bit like Brand New with a poppy and emotive edge. While their songwriting and riffs were a bit generic, leaving not a whole lot to say about them, they definitely weren't bad. Outstanding bass work, as well, especially considering it was the bassist's first show with the band.
6 • I Honestly Can't Think of Any Single Award

Muscle Worship

I quite liked this act as well; they have a sound reminiscent of Bear vs. Shark (apparently I can only come up with comparisons to describe this whole show) with more of a garage rock/math rock feel to it. (As I'll never see BvS live, this is probably as good as I'll get.) Special props to the drummer, who was especially talented and had a really neat complex style. At this point, the show started to get too loud to the point where things were sounding muddy (especially the bass)—not sure if that was Kobo's fault or what—so I didn't enjoy them quite as much as I should have. Still a good set, though.
7 • Best Use of Pedal Loops Award

The Appleseed Cast

Apparently it's been a while since I listened to this band, because I definitely don't remember them being so much post-rock and so little midwest-emo. Not that they're bad, but there were definitely some bits that dragged on and on, especially the instrumental pieces (then again, I was really tired by this point). The older tracks (e.g. the encore ones that everyone seemed to know) definitely performed better live. Still, a pretty neat show; their music is obviously still quite nice. Clip (warning: shitty vertical video—I saw the person filming this, too, she obviously had no idea what she was doing)
7 • Most Useless Keyboard That They Only Used on Half of One Song Award

Three Trapped Tigers – EP2

August 17, 2009 • Blood & Biscuits

This band was hyped on Rate Your Music so briefly that I almost missed them. I'm glad they managed not to fly under my radar, because they're pretty dang good, with a really unique and interesting sound.

Three Trapped Tigers create a sort of post-rock / math rock fusion, like a collaboration between Battles, Holy Fuck, and 65daysofstatic. Fast, stuttery keyboards and clean guitars take the forefront while some aggressive polyrhythmic drumming holds it all together. The electronic element in the music is huge, with some almost chiptune-like voices that sound like some video game soundtracks I've heard, but it's still all definitely in a rock context—a bit weird, but it works so well.

I guess it's the overall sense of rhythm in these songs that makes it so damn catchy, so easy to get into a groove with and just kind of ride it straight through to the finish. It all sounds very focused, and even through four relatively short tracks you still see a lot of fantastic things. Not an EP to be missed.

7

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

October 15, 2012 • Constellation Records

I promised myself that I was going to exercise some self-control and hold off on overlistening to and reviewing the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Of course I can't do it. They've been one of my favorite bands for a long time now, and the release of 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! is one of the most exciting things to happen in music this year for me. I have it on preorder, naturally, but I couldn't help checking out the leaks and I gotta say, it's all very exciting.

Technically, there really isn't that much new on this album; Godspeed has been performing "Mladic" and "We Drift Like Worried Fire" live for almost ten years now, but it's great to hear them finally get the studio treatment. I've hardly heard the old versions much myself, so they sound pretty fresh to me regardless. It's standard Godspeed fare, really—lots of tense buildups, slow and somewhat meandering song structures, and plenty of that stark, depressive beauty. Nothing's really changed much there, and I don't see that as a bad thing, since they sound as fantastic as they always have, with the great violin and glockenspiel arrangements giving them that orchestral sound that fits their songs so well.

Sonically, this album is a step in the right direction for the band; I had always been a bit disappointed by Yanqui U.X.O.'s straightforward and almost generic sound, but 'Allelujah! brings back somewhat those droney textures and found-sound bits that made their first two albums so interesting. Instrumentally, I don't think Godspeed has ever sounded this heavy, particularly on "Mladic"; there's lots of squelching feedback, extra distorted guitars, and almost krautrock-like pounding percussion—not that those things weren't present before, but they're definitely dialed up here (or it feels like it). Even the two drone pieces are denser and darker than usual; the aggressive noise and those screeching violins give them a very eerie and effective mood. Contrast that to the uplifting, almost joyous, tone of the beginning of "We Drift Like Worried Fire". It's a real ride.

I am slightly disappointed that the album feels a bit short, and not (just) in the "I-want-more" way, but having only two songs and two interludes makes it feel a bit more like Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada than anything, like the album's missing something—like another song, I suppose. It doesn't help that those drone tracks both feel like they're over just when they've started. Hopefully this all means they're saving up some new material for something else for the future (not that I'm holding my breath or anything).

'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! may not be anything terribly original and it certainly doesn't push any post-rock boundaries and whatnot. But it's still great to hear something new from the band that crafted my favorite album of all time, that they're still the masters of the genre, and that maybe they're going to stick around a bit longer. I certainly hope so, anyway.

8

No preview today. Instead, here's a fun fact: The term "Printemps érable" is a reference to the 2012 Quebec student protests. Fitting, I guess.

Cloudkicker – Fade

August 2, 2012 • self-released

Another year, another Cloudkicker album. While the project's debut was admirable—in fact one of the best prog-metal albums in recent years—time has shown Sharp running out of ideas and his music has suffered a bit for it. Fade isn't a bad album by any means, but it has its problems.

One of the things that drew me to Cloudkicker in the first place was the incredibly catchy yet technical math-metal riffs of The Discovery and the way they complimented the album's uplifting mood. Fade is still very much a Cloudkicker album in that the same major-chord riffs and floaty atmosphere are always present, in addition to plenty of really great rhythmic sections, though presented in a more post-rock style instead of straight metal. The performance is solid all around—lots of neat layered guitars, nice gritty bass, and good drum programming. The production is getting slicker as well and everything is very clear and audible, so if nothing else the album is technically pleasing to listen to.

I suppose that, at least for me, nothing about Fade is as memorable or interesting as The Discovery or Beacons that makes it stand out. Sure, it has some nice riffs but in general the songwriting is simply a bit dull. Either some sections drag on so long as to become boring or the songs jarringly jump around between totally different styles. On the other hand, the second half of the album is a major improvement over the first half (tracks 5–7 specifically); for some reason the songs seem more consistent and enjoyable. So it's worth sticking through to the end, even though the first few tracks pose a bit of a barrier to me.

I still wish Cloudkicker would venture back into the math metal realm, but as far as things go Fade isn't bad. It's not something I'm probably going to ever listen to again, but I'm hopeful that this album marks more of a stepping stone for Cloudkicker into something that will be a little better.

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Swans – The Seer

August 28, 2012 • Young God Records

So Swans are pretty serious about this reunion, I suppose. My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky was an alright, if unmemorable, start; but I can tell the gloves are coming off with monstrosity that is The Seer. It might still not be as focused and consistent as their early material, but it can definitely hold its own in their discography.

This album comes off, to me, as a combination of My Father... and their other landmark double-album Soundtracks for the Blind: The Seer is just as grand in scope, as you can tell just from looking at the track lengths. Somehow it still has a very rock-oriented sound, much more homogenous than Soundtracks' sound which jumped from drone to ambient to rock and back. There's still elements of all that here, especially the rock and drone, but organized differently, much more like My Father... was. It has a very hypnotic repetitive sound, like a stripped-down version of Branca's The Ascension—some sort of droning psychedelic no-wave post-kraut-rock abomination. All par for the course for Swans, naturally.

One thing I hear mentioned a lot, and complained about a lot, is the album's length. Yes, it's a long album with long songs. Does it justify the longness? That's debatable. Unlike Soundtracks which had a lot going on over its two discs, The Seer has fewer ideas and just expands on them for a longer time. It's a different approach, not necessarily better or worse, but for me there are definitely some filler sections and repetition that could be done without. Some of the tracks' runtimes are entirely justified, like the two long tracks on disc two (oddly enough), but I don't really see the point of bits like "The Wolf" or "The Daughter Brings the Water" or the obnioxous "93 Ave. B Blues", or the longevity of "Mother of the World", which is fine but doesn't do much to justify ten minutes.

But when The Seer gets good, it gets good, and most of the tracks are shining examples—"A Piece of the Sky" is one of the best and one of the album's highest points; it has fantastic composition and an excellent last third to justify twenty minutes of the listener's time; not a minute is wasted. I just wish they could have kept up that kind of quality for some the shorter tracks. Of course there are a few that are really cool—I like "The Seer Returns"' almost hip hop-like beat, or the way "Avatar" and "The Apostate" use tubular bells and tribal drums to evoke a tense and foreboding atmosphere, or the pure furious intensity of "The Apostate"'s intro. Just great.

While My Father didn't do a lot to nab my attention, The Seer has done the job just fine, and it's clear that Swans (and Gira especially) still have it in them, even if they might not have the chops to produce two hours' worth of amazing music at once quite yet. Like all Swans albums, on the whole it's nothing I find amazingly mind-blowing, but it's consistently as good as most of the rest of their material and anyone who liked their other stuff will find something to love about The Seer. It almost feels like they never left us at all, and hopefully they won't do it again anytime soon.

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