Present - The Way We Are

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 25 / 6 / 2009

Label: Loaf Recordings
Format: CD

intro

Eerie post-industrial drone rock on second album from instrumental New York-based power trio, the Present

'The Way We Are' is New York's the Present's second album. A whitewash or white noise? Certainly a severe attempt at a brainwash! Welcome to an imaginary soundtrack of evolution, of progress in sonic variations and of eerie science-fiction. The post-industrial drones comprise one layer of this hefty, busy album; the rhythmic bursts take the lead in a grand excursion such as 'Press Play' and it is those bursts upon which the compositions rely on. In your mind, cross that; in mý mind, 'The Way We Are' evokes visions of leaking gaspipes, dying mobile phones, ill-fitted boilers and fast transport, planes and trains. The human voice is absent and very few acoustic and keyboard instruments are used yet 'The Way We Are' appears very much to be of flesh and blood, not only because of the fearsome percussion, in particular in the half hour that the title track takes up. It's a cunning and urban trip, though lacking genuine surprises given the length, but perhaps that is because I have been Repo-possessed for a good deal of the time recently.

Track Listing:-