Apse
"Eras"
LP
Equation Records
Genre:
experimental rock
Newtown, CT
Mar 19, 2009 |
Eras is Apse's "unofficial"
follow-up to their 2006 breakout album Spirit, which was
recently reissued by esteemed label/festival-coordinators All
Tomorrow's Parties. In true obsessive obscurist form, it's been
released in a beautiful edition of only 425 copies on slick, 180-gram
vinyl, replete with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. Collectors, take heed
- Equation Records will hook you up.
I will admit I've never actually listened
to Spirit, but based on the recommendations
of others, I approached this record with high hopes. And,
despite it's miniscule pressing, Eras
does indeed feel like a polished, complete album. In fact,
this is an atmospheric,
epic voyage of a record, tightly strung between post-rock,
avant-garde, art-rock, and drone music. There are songs here, but
there is also so much more - the ecstatic
energy of "The Letter," the gloom of "The Gloom"... What makes these
songs work isn't their melodies, but their execution. The tracks are
carefully interconnected, and there is a
natural progression running through them. In
fact, Eras is an album perfectly suited for
vinyl - each side is a self-contained story,
best absorbed in whole. I prefer side B, which begins with a death
march before launching into daring, dreamy art-rock followed by dreary
Sunday-morning haze. Fans of Animal Collective and Au
will find a lot to like here, not so much because Apse sounds
like either, but instead because they don't. You get what I mean?
apse's myspace
87%
youuuuuuuutube!:
video for "the gloom"
Matt Shimmer
[Vitals: 14 tracks, distributed by
the
label,
released Feb 14, 2009] |