Sweden’s Aerial have come a long way since their formation in 2005. The Sentinel is their second album (though only the first to have been released in the UK), but it showcases a mature sound that puts them on a par with the long-standing leaders of post-rock.
As a genre, post-rock has ripened to the point where the traditional tropes are well established in the public ear. This is a double-edged sword; the downside is that it’s easy for new bands to leap onto the bandwagon without doing anything particularly innovative or different (which is the antithesis of what post-rock is said to be all about).
The upside is that bands with the will and the wiles to make an effort have a solid platform from which to leap into uncharted airspace; a set of solid foundations to build upon, rather than to pitch a tent within. Aerial have taken this latter path – The Sentinel ticks all the standard post-rock boxes, but is marked indelibly all the way through with a distinctive sonic footprint that marks it out as their own and no one else’s.
That said, it takes a little while for them to hit their stride. The first couple of tracks are wilfully twee and lacklustre, and possibly a poor choice as album openers – they might come across better nestled among the other material. But with the third piece, “46th Street”, everything takes off properly, with the perspective and scope of the music widening like a cinematic zoom-out panning shot.
The chiming guitars, atmospheric synths and cymbal-heavy drumming will be familiar territory for post-rock enthusiasts, as will the distant haunting vocals and momentary passages of calm - but Aerial never stick to one sound for very long. Rather than chopping and changing rapidly, however, they slide organically between settings – over the course of sixteen or thirty-two bars, the clean reverb-drenched strings will gradually descend into overdriven howls of feedback, or vice versa.
The music skates along the fine line between melody and discord, oscillating between the two almost imperceptibly, like order emerging from chaos and then submerging once again in the manner of waves behind a breakwater. Aerial stand facing into a rainstorm of their own creation, defying it to wash them away at the same time as they reach out to wrest control of it.
It’s a game of light and shade, like good monochrome photography. Far from the dull juxtaposition of black and white, The Sentinel is painted with myriad shades of grey – a greater and more evocative palette of tone than the simple primary colours deployed by other bands. Aerial aren’t going to convert the three-minute pop lobby any time soon, but for the more thoughtful musical explorer, The Sentinel offers a rewarding introspective excursion into an urban landscape of haunting familiarity.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: Aerial, post-rock, The Sentinel
