fcahoon

This is melodic, anthemic postrock. Along with the usual distorted guitars and drums, a dominant role is given to acoustic piano in these pieces.

The careful attention paid to the levels at which the different instruments are mixed is the best thing about this music; it's simply possible to _hear_ so much in it!

This release is also available in FLAC format from the band's website; get it from there if you want the highest quality.

The only reason I give it a 9 instead of a 10 is because every song falls into the same tempo range and is certainly in 4/4 -- that is, every piece is an "anthem". But the fix for that is simply to mix these brilliant tunes up with other sorts of music in your playlists.

From the cover I was afraid this might be headbanging music. It's not, it's very thoughtful.

There are a few samples of talking, lines from movies or whatever -- a technique I've never appreciated -- but that's very minimal, and doesn't get in the way of the music.

The opening groove to "jazz cycle 1" is particularly arresting. I would've developed it slowly by fading in and out different voices, but the dynamic of abruptly changing to a different theme as you do works well.

The vocal samples on "jazz cycle 2" I could live without -- I think they're kind of tacky. Your instrumental grooves are much more sophisticated; they don't need "HEY LOOK AT ME!!!" to get attention.

I think I've listened to this on repeat for the fourth time in a row now and I'm still not getting bored -- you've definitely got some good stuff going on here.

Thanks for sharing.

If someone asks me what "post-rock" means, I could easily point them to this album as a canonical example.

Dreamy and melodic, made with sounds drawn from the rock tradition.

"Artificial Heart" is very reminicent of Explosions in the Sky, without being derivative.

"No Return from Heaven" reminds me of the excellent music of Angelo Badelamenti for the Twin Peaks TV series, but instead of Julee Cruise's singing coming in, we have anthemic lines from a distorted rock guitar.

Peaceful and brilliant. Thanks!

It may just be my personal bias, but the "shamanic" vocalizations that come in at 5:57 into the first track are, well, grating to my ears. At first I thought, ok, a little sonic texture, sure ... but they go just on and on! I skipped ahead (could NOT listen!) and found out they end at 10:10. The part after the vocals is especially nice; too bad people turned off by the vocals will miss it.

Eventually I'm going to create a spliced version of that track for my own personal listening which removes the vocal section, because the rest of that track is fascinating.

The entire rest of the album is fascinating, as well. I'm so happy I found this.

When the guitar shredding of the last track came on, I had to look at my player and make sure it was the same album, because it had such a different character, but when the violin came in it tied it thematically to the rest of this album.

Good stuff!