Labels: 3rd I – Truthseeker
Review by: Kunal Nandi
I’d better kick this off by saying that “Blackflower” is great, because the following sentence might suggest that I detest this kind of music. We are in post-metal territory, and I burned out big time on that stuff, maybe due to a vast reduction in my attention span, maybe because drugs scare me and maybe because a lot of the stuff coming out in the post-Pelican / nu-boredom wake was far too much about style over substance. Slow for the sake of slow. So many effects pedals, I wish I’d bought shares in Boss. A swarm of riffless icebergs floating aimlessly about.
So now Sonance have come along and pulled the rug out from under me (or rather, for a second time, as previous album “Like Ghosts” was a fine piece of work too) via their tastefully employed sense of melody, pace and heaviness. Side A is all about the massive “Belgium / Blackflower”, which builds upon a sweetly plangent riff, exploring and building on it to create a nice miasma before crashing in with discordance and volume.
On the flip you get a lovely acoustic-y reprise of “Belgium” which goes to show that its simple melody works whichever way you slice it, “Attachment” which has a droning element to it, varying throughout with some interesting arrangements in the instrumentation, “Conical” which has a brutal, simplistic stomp to it and “Tearce” which closes things out with a phasing, wintry wash of Fennesz-esque ambience before getting a bit nastier towards the end. All killer, no filler.
Sonance
Truthseeker (LP)
3rd I (CD)