HOLY NOISE FROM ABOVE

In perfect honesty, this is actually a pretty solid record from the very obscure Irish post-rock group Haida, who have released this and an album made up of radio-friendly singles derived from the music on this recording. Not much backstory for the group because they are so very quiet about their work. Lineups are not even readily available to the public. Heck, I do not remember how I came across their work, but I am sure glad I did.

Holy Noise From Above has those gradually building crescendos that fans of post-rock drool over, those GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR -esque twenty-minute pieces of rock instruments mimicking an orchestra and in this way it really appeals to me. GY!BE is the artist immediately brought to mind in comparison, but a more accurate description might be in the vein of a grittier version of Mono. Not quite so white-as-snow orchestrally but with a little more rawness to their sound. The tracks (one long piece, in truth) also benefit greatly from instrumentation in the background which includes world music drums and other elements that beckon the world genre.

It's this elaborateness that Haida possesses that made them stick out to me, and that's why the album got numerous listens, because it is not simply generic post-rock.

It's definitely an album a post-rock fan could come to love. It gets four stars from me.