Set Fire To Flames - Telegraphs in Negative / Mouths Trapped in Static

  by Benjamin Howarth

published: 15 / 6 / 2003

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor (finally, they put the exclamation mark in the right place, they’re a Christian band, not Satanists!) is a band that you can count on to produce beautiful, original and challenging music. Their collection of albums, for me, marks the pinnacle of any emotion that music can create. It’s also more than worth checking out the recorded works of the various side projects, of which Set Fire To Flames is one. This is a double album, and fully digesting it will take a long time. Set Fire To Flames do incorporate elements of the Godspeed sound; the drawn out soundscapes, the orchestral flourishing, the intensity and the contrast between complexity and simplicity, and loud and quiet. While Godspeed, however, will draw a single idea out, Set Fire To Flames flash from one point to another with barely a pause. As such, it’s much harder to pick out the moments of brilliance, but when they do emerge, its all the more rewarding for it. The Godspeed collective are considered to be progressive, but I feel this leads to misinterpretation. Essentially, this record reworks the same kind of ideas they’ve used before, but Set Fire To Flames seem to be about capturing feelings in the form of sound. They’re not to be confused with bands that seek to merely capture a new way of playing. This is an album that will need months, even years for you to grow with. I can confidently say, however that anyone who hears it won’t be disappointed. If you only intend to buy a few new rock albums this year, make them the Further Seems Forever, Ataris, Radiohead and Starflyer 59 albums. But if you’re looking for an unconventional independent record then this is about as good as you’ll find.

Track Listing:-

1 Deja, Comme Des Trous De Vent, Comme Reproduit
2 Small Steps Against Inertia / Echo of a Dead End
3 Measure De Mesure
4 Holy Throat Hiss Tracts to the Sedative Hypnotic
5 When Sorrow Shoots Her Darts
6 Kill Fatigue Frequencies
7 In Prelight Isolate
8 Tehran in Seizure / Telegraphs in Negative
9 Your Guts Are Like Mine
10 Fukt Perkusiv / Something About Bad Drugs
11 Sleep Maps
12 Something About Eva Mattes in the Halo of Exploding Street Lamps...
13 Buzz of Barn Flies Like Faulty Electronics
14 And the Birds Are About to Bust Their Guts with Singing
15 Rites of Spring Reverb

Label Links:-

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http://fatcat-records.tumblr.com/
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