Lovingly pinched from Pitchfork: Plenty of bands play music that sounds dark, but few can make every note bleed black and breathe smoke. Count Locrian as part of that select circle. Something about the Chicago trio’s sound is inherently ominous– it’s hard to imagine them playing “Chopsticks” without turning it into an earth-threatening thunderstorm. That effect is obvious in their noisier, more chaotic moments, where metallic noise and intense howls coalesce into scary crescendos. But it’s just as strong in their quieter, more ambient stretches, when they build tension not from heightened climax but from sustained nuance.
The Clearing could be Locrian‘s most nuanced record so far. Throughout, they use slow, far-off sounds rather in-your-face noise to thicken the atmosphere. A frozen piano line, distant drum roll, or shadowy bass loop is often all the group needs to forge a palpable mood. More than half of the side-long, album-closing title track is made of such minimal material.
Yet somehow the band mines it for 17 minutes of sonic pressure. When the song eventually swells into a gnarled thatch of static and low end, Locrian sound less like a group gaining momentum than a mountain rising up through the ocean after years of rumbling below the surface.
Continue reading: Locrian: The Clearing | Album Reviews | Pitchfork.
Tags: Album of the day, Fan Death, Locrian, Marc Masters, pitchfork, The Clearing
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 at 9:18 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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