Stubborn Persistent Illusions

Canadian band that is synonymous with the arise of “Post Rock” (along with Godspeed, Tortoise, et al). 20 years ago (or so) their self-titled debut (check libarary) caught everyone’s ears, much like My Bloody Valentine’s first, or Sonic Youth, or Pixies, inventing a genre changing indie rock forever. This one is as good as ever: bombastic epic instrumental soundscapes marked by complex if mathy drums, huge soaring guitars and tones, washes of sounds, ebbing and flowing. This band doesn’t follow the Godspeed recipe, the whole every-song-starts-off-quiet-and-builds, instead relying on interesting complete compositions. Great stuff, as would be expected. Songs blend into one another but not so much as to create super cold endings, but instead potential for continuous.

1) (5:24) big ol’ mathy beat, epic intense tone, turns skippy midway, almost poppy dancey, ends into next one quite nicely 2)* (10:27) comes out of previous, cool guitar arpeggios begin, quiet feel, nice drums – midway tone changes and theres even some strange looped sax and brass tones, epic! 3)* (5:53) super chill, slide and twangy guitar, like spaghetti western through a narcotic blissful dream haze, ends with quiet swingset sound(?), blends nicely into next 4) (4:49) loving chiming guitar to start, then the big epic walls of sound come, very “post rock”, play with next 5)* (7:13) comes perfectly out of previous – cool dark krautrocky organ, intense tone, almost sinister, then evolves to this dreamy balm rock, so good 6) (8:19) treated field recording in intro, sounds like a park, some sort of gathering, then a cool kinda tribal tom beat appears, this one is more sparse, guitar bass and drums interacting in washes, bass taking a bigger role 7) (7:52) nice guitar melodies and an overall pleasant beat and feel, pretty, builds and gets epic 8) (3:44) starts super quiet, piano, the continues mellow, atmospheric 9) (7:10) cool looper guitar gets joined with a mathy beat that only these guys can pull off, brass parts, dreamy outtro