Wow.. what a surprise this was… I really
quite liked the bands last album but still not as much the first material. This three piece band from Melbourne Australia
take you on some long trips (only 5 tracks in 70mins!) once again… The CD
starts off with Kaleidoscope. The guitar tone is really cool on this starting
riff. After about min the bass joins in the riffing guitar and drums. It might
remind you a bit of Causa Sui. There is also some quite buried vocals by the
drummer but you can’t really hear what he is saying. A very uptempo track with
just the same riffs repeated over and over for over 4mins and then it dies down
to just a bass line and then slowly builds on some spacey guitar. The guitar is
layered and it gets pretty psychedelic (I wonder if they loop the guitar live?)
as it builds up around 9mins. The Inland Sea is next and it slowly builds up.
The guitar sound has more room to it, reverb and he plays in waves as the drums
stay pretty tribal and die out. A new riff kicks in around 3mins and the tempo
increases and the riffing makes some incremental changes until the explosion at
6:30 when the track chills out to the sound of waves. It now goes into full on
post rock dream territory that has been tread so many times by so many bands..
Pity… Still not guitar solos but a
spoken word vocal appears and the track dies out around 13mins. Last hour of
Light starts with some insects at twilight and then the clean guitar riff
begins. The rest of the instruments and vocals join in about 2mins. At about
6mins the track makes some different maneuvers and gets a bit heavier with a
flangy distorted guitar, while the clean riff repeats in the background at a
lower volume. At 11mins we start to drift out into space with some delay
guitars and a long space noodling guitar. Just before 17mins it really starts
to build up again. Pattern of Atolls starts again with a stand alone guitar
which slowly has more guitar effects added to it as the drums slowly enter. A
spoken word vocals appears briefly as the post rock build takes form. At 9mins
it gets pretty intense and there is a noticeable change in the drum sound when
John-Paul pounds them and then does some more spoken words over the just
riffing guitar. Intense ending. The CD ends with The Empty Quarter. Starting
again with solo guitar with a sound of being in a deep chamber and a slow evolving musical journey... Cool record..
This is a site where I post reviews of CDs, DVDs, LPs, and concerts. I have been writing music reviews on and off since 1984. I ran a heavy metal fanzine from 1984-1988 called Metal Madness and have been a staff writer for Aural Innovations for many years. I have also contributed to Chrohinga Well (RIP), Bad Acid (RIP), Lowcut (RIP), Roadburn and a number of other zines as well. I recently moved to Portugal so please request the new address and do not send any music to Denmark anymore. Tak..
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Hey Scott, Still checking out all your great reviews! I did end up resuscitating Under the Radar after a nice break. I see you removed the link accordingly. If you could be so kind to add it back, as your respected blog will generate some good traffic for more exposure to these great bands! http://undertheradarcds.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks and hope all is well in Denmark!
- Tom