Labels: Count Your Lucky Stars
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This is a promising, and pleasant, 5 tracker on new label “Count Your Lucky Stars”. It also lasts almost 30 minutes, which gives you some idea about the ground we may be treading for the most part – slow burning, gradually building post-rock, with guitar effects, long songs and a desire to be epic. Things kick in with the opener “To Finish the Race”, which contains all the previously mentioned elements. The song that really caught my attention though was the awesome title track, and I hope that this is the direction they continue in. This song is a gorgeous twinkler in full on Mineral vein, gently swaying and cranking up the guitar in the chorus. The almost lazy sounding vocals drift over the music, and the soft female vocals (which sadly only feature on this song, get ’em in the band!) mean that it’s very easy to compare it to Jejune as well. There are some dire “screamy” vocals though (of that style where the guy sounds like he is sucking in air, please – DO NOT EVER DO THIS VOCAL). Great track, disregarding that flaw though. A different tack again is taken on “Tear, Repair” (emo title ahoy!), a nice acoustic effort, but the singing gets a touch overwrought at times. After that, it’s fully back to the post rock. “And Ever Since…” is an instrumental, and “Farewell to Knowing it All” carries us off on the effects-ed up guitars and delivers 8 minutes of what the band knows best, really cranking it out in the final two minutes.
The style is far from my favourite, I am all for overblown music, but I often find soaring post rock to be a little too rote. That said, Driving on City Sidewalks have nailed the sound they are going for and this definitely has it’s moments. It should easily appeal to people who enjoyed the direction Appleseed Cast moved off in, or perhaps if you enjoyed the recent release on Deep Elm by Moving Mountains, this is for you also.