More and more am I starting to despise post-metal, and through no fault of the music itself. You know how annoying Tool fans tend to ruin Tool for everyone else? Well, it's worse than that. The genre has been given this status as being “the new classical music”, “the thinking man's Metal”. It has been declared deep and intelligent, as opposed to other Metal, which is just pointless noise and yelling. And enjoying it will make you automatically superior to anyone who doesn't. All in all, post-metal is, supposedly, intellectuals' music. The reality, though, is that calling it intellectuals' music is similar to someone stating that they are a doctor because they watch a lot of House M.D.
One of the main things that is supposed to set post-metal apart is the consistent use of dynamics and contrasts, and even that it doesn't do well. It tends to suffer from the same problem that post-rock does, in that the songs will emphasize so much on being quiet and then being loud and then being quiet again and then being very loud that they fall completely apart once a change is called for. The dynamics are generally entirely superficial and will amount to virtually nothing. And that is a theme that seems to spread among all of post-metal's characteristics. It is superficial, and amounts to virtually nothing.
Of course, I'm not saying this to imply that the entire genre is crap. It does have its fair share of genuinely challenging and well thought out material, rather than stuff that pretends to be. Resurface, for instance, pretends to be challenging and well thought out, but it pretends so well that you can hardly distinguish it from the real thing. It's one of those releases that doesn't try to hide its true nature: It's all about atmospheric candy, nice soundscapes, pleasant melodies, pleasing buildups, and overall just massaging the eardrums. It's pretty up front about all that. But beneath this layer, there is also an evident attention to structure, album flow, progression, and to making sure that the music is not too predictable. The riffs are your usual post-metal ones, maybe with a little more emphasis on cohesion than usual. Nothing truly remarkable, but nothing bad either. They're definitely playing safe, but they pull it off well enough.
For the first half of Resurface, you could even be led to believe that we have here an incredible album! The songs segue into each other in a very satisfying manner, with some tasteful sharp contrasts letting the album keep moving forward. But eventually you encounter some problems. Tides's timing is just a tiny bit off, which damages the listening experience far more than it should. They don't experiment at all with the contrasting dynamics thing either. My biggest beef with this release, though, is the lack of stuff in it. It's not that it's too short, it's just that it doesn't have enough to sink your teeth into. They have found their own sound within the genre, but they also made it so pointlessly specific that a great part of what they do sounds like filler. And while they definitely show the intention of covering a lot of ground, the end result is still rather samey. I would go so far as to say that the opening track is the only one that doesn't sound like it was mostly churned out in a particularly successful jam session, for example. And I wouldn't be too shocked if I found out that all the even numbered tracks were, in fact, particularly successful jam sessions.
Fortunately, the effect of all these shortcomings is hindered by just how pleasant the sounds in this album are. Think of it as a dish of some of the most beautiful food you have ever seen, and the only problem with it is that it's actually wax. You can just enjoy staring at the sculpture all day, no one asks you to actually eat it.
Standout tracks:
Resurface
Aurora
Sirens Fade
Great review. Keep up the good work! ;)
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