
This is the latest album from the young Hamburg team who play their post-rock with a pinch of electronica.
Opening track Captured Moments is a promising start with its bleary-eyed guitars that explode into white noise, layered by fuzzy underwater strings and piano. Matthew Jason and Chris Burda then continue this winning streak with former single Crawling and the vibrant, dramatic title track.
But further in, the album collapses under its own weight. Tranquillity is an uncomfortable mix of hair-metal guitar and rigid, sequenced backing tracks. Lacking the ragged rock rush of Mogwai, much of this album has the synthetic sound of an overproduced bedroom recording. Angle Of Incidence and the unfortunately titled A Smell Of Boiled Greens drift in to the sterile realms of Muzak, whilst Far To The Past could be an Editors’ instrumental outtake.
Intelligence and Take A Shot On Me do however give the album a rousing end, almost returning to the impressive form of the opening tracks. But ultimately, despite the flashes of brilliance, this duo doesn’t do enough with this well-trodden genre to warrant repeated listens.
Opening track Captured Moments is a promising start with its bleary-eyed guitars that explode into white noise, layered by fuzzy underwater strings and piano. Matthew Jason and Chris Burda then continue this winning streak with former single Crawling and the vibrant, dramatic title track.
But further in, the album collapses under its own weight. Tranquillity is an uncomfortable mix of hair-metal guitar and rigid, sequenced backing tracks. Lacking the ragged rock rush of Mogwai, much of this album has the synthetic sound of an overproduced bedroom recording. Angle Of Incidence and the unfortunately titled A Smell Of Boiled Greens drift in to the sterile realms of Muzak, whilst Far To The Past could be an Editors’ instrumental outtake.
Intelligence and Take A Shot On Me do however give the album a rousing end, almost returning to the impressive form of the opening tracks. But ultimately, despite the flashes of brilliance, this duo doesn’t do enough with this well-trodden genre to warrant repeated listens.