This Will Destroy You: Another Language (CD on Suicide Squeeze Records)

Band: This Will Destroy You
Label: Suicide Squeeze Records
Title: Another Language

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Band:This Will Destroy You
Title:Another Language
Reviewed By:Adrian Janes
Date Published:14/11/2014

Label:Suicide Squeeze Records
Format:CD
Release Year:0
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“Nature is a language/Can’t you read?” the Smiths once asked. Although any actual link with This Will Destroy You is improbable, the music on ‘Another Language’ constantly conjures up extreme elemental images, as if trying to translate the power of storms, or articulate lightning.

But before reaching this point, many of the tracks begin at a point of calm.The introduction to ‘New Topia’ evokes Eno, with its limpid guitar and long, chilly synth notes, then gradually builds to a frantic squall of guitars and drums, though even here notes from a Rhodes piano fitfully shine through, like a lighthouse battered by sheet rain.

“Dustism’ and ‘War Prayer’ display similar dynamics,the former’s plangent guitar motif and hammered cymbals fading into the distance before the music returns to full volume in an intense guitar-driven climax, while the latter is a slower build via drifting soundscapes into a drenching of guitars and drums, a dam finally collapsing before a flood. ‘Serpent Mound’ and ‘Memory Loss’ powerfully juxtapose coarse and smooth sound textures before peaking in roaring blizzards of noise. Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Mogwai at their most majestic come to mind.

‘Mother Opiate’ is perhaps the most emotionally exposed piece. It’s dominated by minimalist piano around which other keyboard tones grimly rise and fall; their cold, sweeping sound evoke a wintry wind. Sorrow here seems distilled rather than dulled.

The relentless drum pattern of ‘Invitation’ makes it the most energetic track, a raging guitar at its heart while more considered guitar and keyboard lines are traced around it. Often deliberately restrained elsewhere, apart from climactic crescendos, Alex Bhore’s drums here attack throughout, the maelstrom the band generate the stuff of psychedelic nightmares.

Though they can be criticised for following a certain pattern to the construction of many of the tracks (the muted beginning leading up to an all but rampant end), each one has its own character, and melodies that are simple but emotionally strong. And pieces like ‘Mother Opiate’, ‘The Puritan’ and ‘God’s Teeth’ in any case break this pattern for reflections of stately sadness.

The term ‘post-rock’ has been applied to They Will Destroy You. Although they reportedly despise the label, there is some justice in it, in as much as they apply to the hilt instruments and levels of volume traditionally associated with rock, while producing music that is austere and determinedly undanceable. Above all it is sexless, but this is because it taps into depths of pain and loneliness that mere human company would find hard to console, while nonetheless reaching peaks that, wordlessly, tell you someone understands.

Track Listing:

01) New Topia
02) Dustism
03) Serpent Mound
04) War Prayer
05) The Puritan
06) Mother Opiate
07) Invitation
08) Memory Loss
09) God's Teeth

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Related Links

https://twitter.com/tunnelblanket
https://www.facebook.com/thiswilldestroyyou

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