MONO - "Hymn To The Immortal Wind"

Hymn To The Immortal Wind

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1. Ashes In The Snow (11:46)
2. Burial At Sea (10:39)
3. Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn (6:00)
4. Pure As Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm) (11:26)
5. Follow The Map (3:56)
6. The Battle To Heaven (12:51)
7. Everlasting Light (10:23)



Picking up from 2006's You Are There, Japan's MONO have returned triumphantly with their most massive sounding record to date. This time upping the ante by enlisting the help of the largest chamber orchestra they've used, what we get here is nothing short of magical. Here the songs seem to flow much more seamlessly than their previous album, merging somber tones of reverberated tremolo guitar into gargantuan walls of noise without a sense of it all being disjointed and without it tiring too easily. They've at last found a point in which to quit a theme and transform it into something bigger and better. The music is a lot more focused and it drives much smoother. And with that being said, you can still expect the typical MONO brand of Post-Rock, of course mixed and mastered by musical mastermind and production genius Steve Albini. The only thing that's lacking, again, is the fact that capturing the intensity of their live performance is nigh on impossible and while their latest opus is packed with the cacophonous grandeur you'd expect, it isn't quite a patch on seeing them in the flesh.



8.1/10

The Appleseed Cast - "Sagarmatha"

Sagarmatha

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1. As The Little Things Go (8:15)
2. A Bright Light (7:05)
3. The Road West (8:08)
4. The Summer Before (3:09)
5. One Reminder, An Empty Room (1:49)
6. Raise the Sails (6:27)
7. Like a Locus (Shake Hands with the Dead) (4:02)
8. South Col (6:27)
9. An Army of Fireflies (4:28)

The Appleseed Cast return with their sixth studio album and their first since 2006's "Peregrine". While most of the album remains instrumental, beautifully cascading melody through tremolo guitar and consistent, constant soft tipper tapper percussion not uncommon to the new wave of Post-Rock artists (Explosions In The Sky, Caspian, This Will Destroy You), we also see the clear nods to their Emo routes as well where vocals and conventional song structures are present. Sadly, the vocals are almost scarcely used throughout the entire album. There's also room for the odd climatic eruption resulting in large sounding driven moments but I can't help but feel we've been here before. While it is a good record, it isn't by any means inspirational nor unique. It suffers often of sounding "samey" not from songs within the album but from all of the bands that had done this 5 years previous.

What I can say is that it is a good showcase of well written modern Instrumental Rock that will appeal to most fans of Emo and Post-Rock.



6.7/10

Kashiwa Daisuke - "Program Music I"

Program Music I

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1. stella (36:07)
2. write once, run melos (26:00)

Two tracks spanning just over 1 hour of the most lush and beautifully crafted Post-Rock come IDM that you could possibly imagine. Reminiscent of label mate and fellow Japanese producer World's End Girlfriend, we find Kashiwa Daisuke's remedy of long winded Post-Rock never falls short of the mark, consistently pleasing and never boring. This has to be one of the best records of the last few years and certainly a favourite of mine from 2007.

9.6/10