Review: And So I Watch You From Afar - Gangs
Tearing back into prominence with their second full-length, And So I Watch You From Afar have gifted the contemporary instrumental music scene with a much-needed breath of fresh air. Never has a group given this much of a voice to voiceless music, achieved simply through their equally shared precedence within the band and truly audacious innovation.
The album roars into life with a colossal blast of incomparably thunderous guitars and raucous cheers, which suggests a genuine sense of the camaraderie in the band and love for the controlled chaos they create. Much like their first album, the material on Gangs moves between pieces that practically drip with melody and honey-like ambience, and the likes of Homes – …Samara to Belfast, in which the instrumental and compositional prowess is nothing short of breathtaking.
However, there are intermittent moments on the album that are very familiar. That isn’t to say that those moments are badly written, but the sad fact of the matter is that no instrumental post/math-rock band, even of this standard, has yet managed to keep their sound completely fresh over time. Whilst And So I Watch You From Afar create their own voice with a far more tenacious quality than the many similar bands out there, instrumental music will always have certain limitations. Thankfully this is by no means a deal-breaker for the record, and is a very minor point. However, it is with a heavy heart I wonder how long it will be before this band has said all they have to say.
Nevertheless, this album blasts away any misconceptions that instrumental music is less innovative than the standard rock formula. The introduction to Search:Party:Animal features some of the most inventive and commanding experimentations with the timbre of a riff I’ve ever heard, making you feel as though your ribs might fracture under the sheer force of what the drops do to your heartbeat. Yet somehow the band manage to fluctuate from a veritable blizzard of piercing hooks and foundation-shattering bass to the sumptuous stroke of genius that is 7 Billion People All Alive At Once, which has grandeur reminiscent of Marcus De Vries, or perhaps a 10,000 strong army howling a war-cry.
This is an album of almost Herculean intensity, yet is at the same time wonderfully understated. Often bands in this vein tend to drastically shoot themselves in the foot by taking themselves too seriously or professing themselves to be the dog’s bollocks. Gangs, however, simply oozes with pure, unadulterated enjoyment, and to be perfectly honest, is about as close to actually being the dog’s bollocks as an album can get.
9/10
Key Tracks - 7 Billion People all Alive at Once, Gang (Starting Never Stopping) & Search:Party:Animal
For fans of Maybeshewill, If These Trees Could Talk and Talons
Merlin Jobst
Originally posted on Little Sparrow Reviews
