Compassion

Epic, experimental UK dub with orchestral tendencies. Some great science-fiction movies fuse historical mystique with futuristic technology (e.g. Prometheus). This is the musical equivalent of that synthesis. Like discovering a ruined civilization in a jungle on a distant planet, Matthew Barnes masterfully blends the artificial and the natural. While this album doesn’t surpass his incredible debut, Barnes succeeds in producing epic, forward-thinking music strongly rooted in organic instrumentation. Prepare to be awed by his vision and song craft.

Genre: both forest and sword
RIYL: Burial, Andy Stott, Arca, Tim Hecker
FCCs: No
Favorite Tracks: 1, 2, 3, 6

War It (5:54)* - great song, anthemic, dark; long rise to an exciting climax
The Highest Flood (5:07)* - triumphant yet tense, wow, such anxiety
Panic (4:48)** - kinda eastern melody with swaggering percussion, paranoid vocal samples add to the atmosphere
Exalter (5:36) - consistent distant ringing metallic percussion, epic choral vox
Border Margin Barrier (3:08) - instrumental, less purposeful track, lots of fuzz and reverb, almost entirely percussion-less
Arms Out (5:47)* - grand, compassionate, choppy vocals almost sing, dancey with lovely strings
Vandalism (4:37) - epic percussion, tense, distant war horns, very minimal
Sjurvival (2:26) - train in rain, twisted vocals beneath layers of reverb and effects
Raw Language (4:28) - joyful, experimental brass sections, reverby
Knife Edge (6:16) - some beautiful piano melodies, long, pretty close to the record