CASE OF LIQUID MELANCHOLY

One more band steps on the slippery road of self-produced/self-recorded/self-everything albums. While giants like RADIOHEAD or SIGUR ROS may leak their stuff to the Net weeks before the official release, young bands find themselves in confusing situation. Music should be free - but well, how would they survive then? And this is when self-released albums take years to be completed, when bands trying as hard as they can to get the attention they deserve, when everything works for them - even such little thing as review ;)

So, WAYL started as indie/alternative band, and even more, they've recreated (or just preserved) this attitude for their debut LP, which is entirely instrumental. There are few ways to describe it (like 'Math- Rock with melodies instead of signatures' or 'OCEANSIZE jams with early TOOL'), but these days anyone can simply check band's MySpace or YouTube to get the impression of how they sound like. Reviewer's aim this time is to share his own view and/or opinion. Well, I liked this CD :) Seriously, it's well-crafted, well-recorded and played, all tracks vary in moods and structures (9-min 'Depression Alcohol Depression' is purely epic!) and bear this mysterious mixture of Alternative Rock/Grunge attitude and Post-Rock harmonies, which results in a wonderful Modern Heavy Prog. Some bits may remind you of Post-Metal stuff like RUSSIAN CIRCLES or *SHELS, some are more quirky and electronic (65DAYS?), some are quite straight-forward and simple (this is indie, man!), but there's always something for everyone. With best tracks like 'Box' (amazing heavy coda), 'Dead Air Space' (RADIOHEAD-influenced...to some content ;) ) and above-mentioned 'Depression...', this album stands proudly in my collection of Russian CDs, somewhere between Post-Rock and Prog releases...and this is where it belongs, really. Highly recommended!