Release of the Week
In theory I like instrumental music. It sounds relaxing, it’s not too distracting so I could maximise my time and do two things at once. Read, work. Whatever. However in reality that doesn’t tend to happen. This is because I don’t have a lot of instrumental music that I’m a big fan of and also because the instrumental music I do like is so enrapturing that I just sit back and let it wash over.
The very best example of this is Australian band We Lost the Sea. I’m not familiar with their earlier stuff and I don’t regularly revisit many of their records yet 2015’s Departure Songs remains one of my all time favourite albums.
So I was excited to hear that they were bringing out a new record for the first time since I started covering music and getting advanced copies of this. I crossed my fingers and hoped and sure enough, one day in May it gracefully floated into my inbox.
New album ‘A Single Flower’ is long. Clocking in at 70 minutes with the final track alone being a 27 minute monster all by itself. Usually that is too long for me, but when it’s too quality instrumental music that I’m letting wash over me, I don’t mind. Not when it’s this good.
Without really going into the sound, you know what post rock sounds like, this is an album that everyone should make the time for at least once. There’s crunchy guitar, there’s piano, there’s tension and release, there’s crushing lows and intoxicating highs. It’s the biggest cliche ever to say that something sounds like a “journey” but cliches are cliches because they’re sometimes true. It’s like an audiobook, not where an expressionless AI voice reads you a story but one where the soundscapes unfurl in front of you.
If you like post rock then check it out, it’s all here. If you’re not too familiar with the genre then check it out anyway, if you like music and feelings then there’s something here. Not everyone will love it but I think on some level, they can appreciate it.
This was one of my most anticipated albums of the year and it didn’t let me down.
Hails!