Post-rock is a personal toughie – on one hand I can appreciate the musicianship and skill that goes into a lot of the genre’s defining pieces, but on the other hand I cannot get over the fact that a lot of records in this particular pigeonhole comprise of navel-gazing guitar porn, steeped in pretension and devoid of any true connection with the listener. Peregrine proves my first hand right, whilst simultaneously smacking my second hand around the chops with a rusty mace. The Appleseed Cast are back, and my word have they created a spiffy album.
From the approaching-epic opener of ‘Ceremony‘, you are presented with 13 tracks of beautiful, finely crafted floaty-alterno-rock (to invent a new genre for a minute) akin to Minus the Bear, and just as mesmerising as anything t’Bear have put out in recent days. As each track presents itself there is never a feeling of anything even remotely close to self-importance and certainly no posturing. Far from it – in fact, part of the mesmerising effect of the album comes from it’s humility, and this certainly isn’t a navel-gazer. Stand out tracks come in the form of ‘Sunlit and Ascending’ and ‘An Orange and A Blue’, though to be honest this is unfair on the rest of the songs, all of which easily hold their own in terms of sheer quality.
What else can I say? This is fucking lovely stuff. Two thumbs up.
Ianos