THE DISTANT AND MECHANIZED GLOW OF EASTERN EUROPEAN DANCE PARTIES

65DAYSOFSTATIC is a math-rock band most well-known for its aggressive style and mixture of heavily electronic and instrumental music, and in this EP is errs on the side of electronica. '65' set out to move their music towards the genre of european dance that would make many a lover of prog cover their ears, and they do it without causing that common effect. Blending complex rythms, percussion, and layers of sound (including a haunting a capella drone with heavy distortion on Dance Parties (distant), rather unheard of in dance to say the least) with the common 8/8 beat and double/quadruple-speed percussion explosions of dance, they succeed in bringing the complexity and excitement of the proggy side of math-rock to a genre that at first seems unrelated in this first song and in its even more dance-y, heavy and aggressive twin, Dance Parties (mechanised).

The third song, Goodbye, 2007, starting out with a 'skeletal' drone that strangely enough doesn't gather the tension such starts are usually supposed to, is a rather dreary exercise in percussion that is easily forgotten, and it is oddly fitting that its first review be in 2009.

The EP comes to a better and more obviously post-rock end with Antique Hyper Mall. Slowly building up tension and emotion with a soundscape familiar to listeners to '65', by using short, soft bits of percussion instead of long, dynamic tones used by post-rock behemoths like SIGUR RÓS and MOGWAI. The song accentuates both the similarity and contrast between math- and post-rock in the first few minutes, coming to an early high when the angular and haunting guitars set in before devolving in a mud of percussion and echoed electronics in the end. A hit and miss that is nevertheless still very much worth listening to.

'The Distant and Mechanised Glow of Eastern European Dance Parties' will not make you happy for as long as the title may suggest, but is a highly enjoyable example of the broad scope of math-rock. Recommended for those who want to see math-rock delve into uncharted territory.