Musicurious

“I want to dislike this. I really do, because I know exactly what Palisades are playing at. With every listen to I’m Not Dying Today I can feel them wrapping me around their fingers. The band is dripping with studio flourish. We’re talking immaculate production and mixing, satisfyingly heavy guitar and drum sound, injections of electronics, polished and layered vocals totally impossible to recreate in a live setting, and the choruses, oh god, the hooks! They’re a post-hardcore band on Rise Records, for crying out loud! I know that I’ve heard this all before, but it’s so fucking good! Palisades are like the Captain-fucking-America of post-hardcore acts.”

Check Decoy Music over the next couple of days to read the whole thing. I promise you I continue to gush and curse simultaneously. In the mean time, fucking listen to Palisades, seriously.

I AM A BLURB ON AN ALBUM COVER!

“Check ‘em out, because when they’re on, Those Mockingbirds kill it.”
BOOK PUN.

So, to celebrate, I’m gonna repost my review of Fa Sol La after the jump.

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Released on: 1 July 2011
They’re from: Washington D.C.
Sounds like: Minus the Bear throwing a temper-tantrum under a shower of the shimmering fragments of an exploded disco ball.
Hear it: http://bit.ly/sinatradc 

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No lie, I found Sinatra on Iselia’s Facebook wall. I had also assigned myself to review Iselia’s new album Life from Dead Limbs, but when I clicked through to Sinatra’s Bandcamp page and heard the first few seconds of “It’s Like England Out..,” I immediately downloaded Lost in Hyrule and shelved Iselia for a few hours. I’ve got it bad; math rock is my catnip.

The rundown on Sinatra’s sound: well-executed, effect-laden, nimble guitar work underscoring raspy screams with a solid rhythm section— particularly Jon Stephens’ drum work. They immediately bring the dancy punk sensibilities of Native or Zlam Dunk to mind, though Sinatra are less caustic than the former and more catchy than the latter. Interestingly enough, the slower songs, especially the instrumental “We Transition,” channel the chilled-out math rockers This Town Needs Guns, or perhaps even the ambient, expansive emo of American Football. The final track “Whole Word; No Soul” lashes out like HORSE the Band on barbiturates; it cuts sweeping tremolo with staccato bursts of shrapnel riffage, before a spoken word build-up rife with delayed guitar climaxes with guitar noodling and gang vocals. In essence, Sinatra have crafted a unique sound entirely their own, but have an impressive musical pedigree backing them up.

I’m excited to have found Sinatra, as Lost in Hyrule a fun listen with a real bite. And with a price tag of “Free,” there’s no real reason for you not to give Sinatra a few digital spins.

UPDATE: In an unfortunate turn of events, it seems that Sinatra are breaking up! In that case, listen up, and I’ll let you know when the ex-band members start up another kickin’ project or two.

UPDATED UPDATE: Sinatra are un-broken-up, and are writing new material! It’s a Christmas miracle half a year early!

Genre: Post-rock / Experimental
From: Brooklyn, New York
Dropped: 26 January 2010 

Regret-o-Meter: A closet racist with a Black & White cookie. You really love certain parts, and there are other parts you wish you could love, but your biased and backward upbringing has permanently tainted you. Every glance at the half-finished cookie tears your heart apart a little more.

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I downloaded Slow Six’s Tomorrow Becomes You for the same reason I download most post-rock albums I see: I love post-rock. I never listened to it for the same reason I never listen to post-rock: I’m never in the mood for post-rock. Those two statements may seem at odds, but I like to devote my full attention to post-rock— the fact that it is largely instrumental means that if I don’t, it slips into the back of my consciousness and I fail to really appreciate it. More often than not, I’m not willing to make that concession, so my stores of unlistened-to post-rock are hilariously large. 

I equate the opening minutes of Tomorrow Becomes You to the first few moments of waking up before your alarm clock, your face drenched in weak sunlight that has crept in through the window. The music drones along drearily, not unlike dredg’s work on the Waterborne soundtrack, until an abrupt flourish of violins and percussion rudely snap you from your serene trance like that alarm you forgot to turn off. The difference here is that after a few brilliant seconds you openly invite the interloping staccato bursts as the track builds upon its own melodies and energies, transmogrifying into lush, orchestral ear-sex. 

And as the track fades out you realize that nine minutes have passed. 

The simple addition of a string section really makes this album for me. Slow Six play a very competent brand of post-rock that any fan of the genre would appreciate, but the expert use of strings is just about instantly enamoring. 

In direct contrast to the immediacy of the strings, the gentle ambience and fragmented audio clips of “Could Cover (Pt. II)” bore me. To me, it’s less a sense of placidity like the opening minutes of “The Night You Left New York,” and more a sense of unfiltered noise and feedback. It’s a common component of a lot of post-rock, and I know quite a few aficionados who dig it, but I much prefer structure and harmony to atonality and noise. I guess I’m just a lame-o conformist. 

“Because Together We Resonate” mixes structure with un-structure, pitting one violin against the other. It’s a neat track in that some of the notes strike me as sour and awful but I still like a good deal of it. “Sympathetic Response System (Pt. I)” introduces conspicuous electronics for the first time, giving the opening moments of the track a groovy, industrial feel. It’s easy to lose yourself in the soundscape of sweeping guitar lines and mechanical beeps and boops. I imagine this is the kind of music that robots have freaky robot sex to. 

The final track, “These Rivers Between Us,” features more excellent violin wankery and quickly escalates into a full-on crescendo before the two-minute mark, devolving into delicious programming, a flurry of horns and a blast of triumphant guitars. A spectacular end to a spectacular album.

To anyone with even a mild interest in instrumental music, I can’t recommend Slow Six highly enough.