COYOTE

This is a really challenging album that is absolutely worth a listen if you want to hear something challenging, unique and dark. It's some sort of chamber-avant-atmospheric music, composed to a poem written by a friend of the band who was dying of cancer. The album is intended as a single continuous piece, and although it is split into five distinct tracks it is strongest as a whole.

As I stated, atmosphere is the name of the game here, and that can lead to sections that are unsettlingly sparse only with mastermind Toby Drivers very-unique vocals overtop, or to chaotic sections where strings, sax, and guitar meld into a cacophony. Ultimately, the point of this album is to drive home the sense of mortality and an end coming, and it succeeds in this. But, as alluded to in the beginning, this album has a very distinct sound that is a little difficult to parse at time. Upon multiple listens it becomes very clear that the band has carefully thought out the feeling behind each note but that does not make the music any easier to parse. Expect to give this album many devoted listens before any sort of understanding truly emerges.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to predict how this album will settle with any particular listener. There is very little discernible here in the way of melody, or rock - the palette of noises is unusual and beyond what one would normally expect to hear. This is a double edged knife, and while it is clear that the music has been expertly crafted, as some times it is still too alien for me to be moved by it. How well you react emotionally will of course depend upon your pre- disposition to these kinds of sounds.