Saturday, September 10, 2016

Respire : "Gravity and Grace"




So if Godspeedyoublackemperor! and Deafheaven decided to make a screamo album together I suppose it might sound like this. The first two songs kinda run together and I know I like at least one of them. They bring other instruments aside from your typical guitar, bass & drums into the mix and this is what gives their sound a more expansive quality. Funny side note a noticed while listening to the very pretty 'Eternal Light" that some one had posted on their Bandcamp page that the guys in this band are douche bags, but this sounds alright. I can hear this being played by hipsters who might earn such and adjective, but I am fine with what they are doing here sonically. Come to think of it are there Hipsters in Canada?  The black metal elements seems organic enough and they are not rushing to the blast beats so this earns them points in my book.

There is more of the "blackgaze" shimmer to things on the furious "Waltz" though overall I would say post-rock is a much bigger influence on these guys than shoe-gaze. The title track is more of an instrumental interlude than an actual song. The trumpet leads into "Eternal Nothing" which at nine minutes is the albums longest song, so these guys get point for not dragging you around in a wandering self indulgent drone. The vocals get meaner on on this song when they kick around the two minute mark. The long flow of the song slowly makes me zone out despite some interesting melodies surfacing before the blast beat at the end.

"Evening Melancholy" is broken up into three sections. The first features breathy shoe gaze like clean vocals. They bring a band like Nothing to mind. It all flows together more like one song, I think the first part is the most like a song that can stand on it's own two feet. I'll give this album an 8.5, not sure it's something I feel drawn to having in my iPod , but it's a great listen and worth checking out if you are a fan of Deafheaven or like more aggressive forms of post-rock.



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