EP #1

Loose post rock sounds surrounding us. The realm of post and math rock is actually enormous, day by day new bands are planning to be discovered, or old bands are just being discovered, the fact is that there is a lot of music to listen to, and lots of musicians whose talent has to be appreciated. This American band with a curious name caught my attention by that, so I wanted to listen to their music and found this introductory record, which shows their first steps, it is simply called "EP #1" and was released in 2007. It consists of 4 songs that together make a total time of 25 minutes approximately.

The album is practically instrumental, just with a few voices in the very beginning. It opens with "No.1" which happens to be their longest track with almost ten minutes of great instrumental post rock. The mood is pretty charming, nice, relaxing, the rhythm is sweet so it is easy to dig it. The song is repetitive for the first three minutes, later it changes a little bit, a pause exists and a restart comes seconds later along with new guitar figures. After six minutes it becomes more interesting, the emotion and intensity increases, so that touching side of post rock is present here.

"No. 2" is shorter and less relaxing, it has a repetitive sound and a constant progression in the first minute, later it becomes heavier, reaching maybe the post-metal realm, the bass is more explosive, and the guitars create crazy sounds. "No. 3" drives another change, this time it starts with acoustic guitar in a very soft way, and then the spoken words return, like telling a testimony of a life. This track is particularly weak.

And the final track "No. 4" increases the emotion and returns with their best face, because I believe their experimentation with the previous two short tracks don't show their better moments. In this one the sweet and emotional guitars start softly and produce a charming and sheltering mood in the first couple of minutes; later their heavy tendencies appear, the guitar shows more energy and the music becomes heavier and more emotional, though wait, it only lasts another two minutes and then the music slows down again, just like in the first part. But it does not finish here, because another change comes later. Nice.

It is cool to discover these kind of post rock bands, they always have something to say, and though this first EP is not truly my favorite post-rock release ever, it is very decent, with two cool songs, and two weak ones, however my interest is kept so I will listen to more of their work soon. My final grade will be two stars, anyways?

Enjoy it!