Avoiding
the first-person is a challenge for this writer, when
reviewing an album that for a self-professed instrumental
rock idolater takes on distinctively personal semantics.
The stereotypical way to introduce a post-rock album
by hitherto unknowns is the obligatory equation, often
skillfully woven into text, but here explicitly stated:
Antarcticans = Godspeed You Black Emperor x (early-Mogwai
+ early-Explosions in the Sky) / My Bloody Valentine.
Though somewhat descriptive, such a proclamation is largely
arbitrary, and ultimately serves to further distance
the unfamiliar from an already insular community of listeners.
For post-rock, and noise-rock as is also present, are
strange beasts that can frequently, to the untrained
ear, come off sounding like a wall-of-noise, distorted
and dissonant, formless and excessive.
But
as this four-piece Los Angeles-based group demonstrates,
it’s all about discovering those hidden intricacies
that fail to present themselves on first listen. Unlike
conventional rock, this doesn’t revolve around
an infuriatingly catchy refrain, but relies on constant
revisiting to familiarize oneself with what will eventually
prove to be a far more rewarding experience.
Rather
than attempt to bombard their audience with short spurts
of violence, The Antarcticans realize, with their
debut album, that their compositions need time and space
to develop. Thus they offer up a free-wheeling sonic
journey akin to Godspeed’s most epic constructions.
The path is unpredictably volatile, but entirely mesmerizing,
contrasting hardcore onslaughts with psychedelic resolution.
The second track establishes a vivid and emotive soundscape
that evokes Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” (albeit
a distant descendant). But The Antarctican’s ability
to instantaneously inflect an idiom they have apparently
wasted no time in mastering is constantly mesmerizing.
This is a self-produced, self-released, self-titled
album that captures a perturbing and raw energy usually
only witnessed in live acts. With such an abundance of
proficiency and talent so early on, this is a band that
we will no doubt hear more from shortly.
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