Album: At the Soundless Dawn
By: Eric Feigner
For: The Daily Barometer
Link: Here.
The puddles that speckle the cracked sidewalks reflect nothing but the grey, overcast sky. Bare branches loom like jagged fingers, clawing at an ominously obscured sun while drably dressed pedestrians scuttle from building to building. Maybe it's the rain, or maybe its regret, but these days, everyone stares at their feet. Overwhelmingly dark, despite every indication, there is hope.
Eventually, every overcast sky breaks, revealing a long-forgotten sun still set in its place. In the dead of January, these fleeting moments are sparse, but Red Sparowes have perfectly captured the ephemeral nature of these transitory instances on their debut album, At the Soundless Dawn.
An uncanny collaboration bringing together members of Neurosis, Isis, Halifax Pier and The Cignal, Red Sparowes flawlessly juxtaposes the dark with the joyous, crafting a beautiful style of their own.
"When Isis moved to L.A., we started writing, and before we knew it, we had a bunch of songs," guitarist Josh Graham said in an interview with Diversions.
Set apart from their previous bands, Red Sparowes is epic without pretentiousness, heavy without being demanding and overly unique.
"Being an instrumental band, we kind of let the guitars take over for the vocal melodies," Graham said.
Opening with the eight-minute epic, "Alone and unaware, the landscape was transformed in front of our eyes," it's obvious that Red Sparowes is a notch above most post-rock / post-metal bands. Simplistic drums waiver over an ever-growing ambient landscape of effects-laden guitar feedback. Breaking through the murky backdrop, a pedal-steel guitar emerges, transforming the song with a simple string of notes. Layers upon layers dramatically wax and wane, completely engulfing the listener in its dark, yet victorious mood.
"We actually recorded this album about 95% live in the studio, all playing together. There's a few overdubs here and there, but it's definitely representational of our live performances" Graham said.
The titles of the seven tracks read like a paragraph and consequently, on the album, each song bleeds into the next, elaborating and extending the previous thought.
"The title of the tracks themselves are definitely influenced by different things, like some of T.S. Elliot's poetry," Graham said. "The overall idea is from -- well, it's sort of dramatic -- but, it's not really a political point of view. It's more of an observation: throughout Earth's history, there have been extinction events -- the ice age, the comet -- but each time, there's been a large percent of species that have died as an end result of the events. There's a lot of theories that the sixth event is happening now, the sixth extinction, and there are theories that speculate that some of the first species that are dying in relation to that event are the sparrows."
These songs are movements, and even though they work in isolation, as a whole, they represent a complete vision, full of minute nuances and wonderful subtleties. The amount of emotion and movement contained on this simple CD is astounding, even for the seasoned veterans that make up the band.
"It's instrumental music, but it comes from a different place than a lot of instrumental bands," Graham said. "We just hope that people can find elements in the music that they like."
Melding an aurally open landscape with moments of severe claustrophobia, the album's closing track, "The Sixth Extinction Crept Up Slowly, Like the Sunlight Through the Shutters, As We Looked Back In Regret" is a twelve minute testament to the sheer ability of the band and their ability to escape the anchors of the metal genre. Taking nearly six minutes to blossom, the track eventually explodes in a jaw-dropping crescendo, only to fade back into silence, completing the cycle.
Bouncing between brooding lows and awe-inspiring highs, At the Soundless Dawn directs the listener into a completely different place, somewhere indescribable.
Multifaceted, the album feels like the halfway-happiness between tears and a smile. With unmatched strength, Red Sparowes have succeeded, proving that you can look at the overcast sky and know that behind the clouds, the sun is burning, and these gray days will all be over soon.
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