I'm not normally into ambient rock that much, but this is definitely one of the most impressive albums of the year. Fans of the Make Mine Music label take note. The Fun Years create a mix of instrumental and electronic sounds for engaging ambient that builds up over the course of the album. Ambient music this powerful simply doesn't come around very often. The opener "My Lowville" starts off with a gentle guitar strum and electronic sounds, and both build and build for ten minutes until you can't tell which sound is which. A piano takes over on track 2 (reminding me of Swod's Sekunden, my #1 album of 2007), and reinterprets the opener while pushing forward the narrative of the album. Field noises and guitar interrupt the flow of the piano as it decays into chaos, like a damaged tape recording, until synths save it from complete destruction. Track 3 moves closer to the territory of Lusine Icl, as it's a little gentler, and a little cleaner electronic ambient that forms its own heartbeat with the sounds, a motif that continues with track 4 and flares up as it nears closer "The Surge Is Working", which opens up the guitars for the type of volume hinted at by the rest of the album. Multiple guitars and flickering noises weave up a threatening melody for a full on symphonic post rock meltdown that will make Explosions in the Sky go back to the drawing board. A must-listen.

Style: Ambient, Post Rock

RIYL: Swod, Zelienople

Buy from Barge  Barge MySpace

Download: Auto Show Day Of The Dead

Tags See All Tags

2008  Ambient  Baby Its Cold Inside  Barge  Post Rock  Swod  The Fun Years  Zelienople  onecaseman 

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Add Comment