Exitmusic – From Silence EP
Post-rock ranges from the undeniably epiphanic to the downright po-faced and indulgent. In order to avoid the latter and to distinguish themselves from the pack, Exitmusic , predominantly New York husband-and-wife team Aleksa Palladino and Devon Church , wisely opt to decorate their pensive creations with soft electronics and pop-ready beats.
Pairing chilly soundscapes and playful, elfin beauty isn’t new – ask Björk – but with the elemental scope of post-rock to explore, explosions in the sky are no longer the limit. Thanks to warm swells of beats and clipped electronics, “The Sea” does just that, overrunning the ears with a sort of crashing post-pop. Palladino works her charm too, ensuring the sea in question is northerly with the inclusion of her choicest Nordic whisper.
Similarly underpinned by a regular pop pulse, “The Modern Age” doses out fragile guitar on top of denser, chest-beating lines. Gathering in intensity, it evokes images of time-lapse photographers speeding up the interaction between colliding weather fronts. And, layered underneath this heavy blend lies a fractured skitter that brings to mind post- OK Computer Radiohead – perhaps unsurprising for a band that take their name from within that same album.
Splitting the difference between Radio Dept ‘s oneirism, Mew ‘s breathy exuberance and The Joy Formidable at their most emotively overblown, second track “The Hours” latterly cracks the code in “Eureka!”-fashion when it comes to sound-a-likes. With a pronounced electronic footfall, the track nevertheless manages to tiptoe through a frost-covered wonderland in which pretty, twinkling instrumentation herald every announcement, and in which all roads lead to The Deer Tracks .
Finally, not forgetting their roots, “The Silence” recalls Exitmusic’s own 2008 slip The Decline Of The West in that, in turn, it recalls Portishead letting fly from somewhere deep down in the mix those drawn-out guitar shapes and echoes so vital to post-rock.
By definition, post-rock doesn’t have the immediacy of rock, its pitch always simmering despite its muscular posturing. Exitmusic aren’t stupid neither. They know nuclear rock, be it post- or otherwise, just doesn’t cut the mustard these days. Their marriage of electronics and guitar on From Silence won’t have the Internet coining new genre classifications either, but it’s strong enough to make the bloggers try and be clever all the same, as, in being a close representation of the sound of a snow-covered tree falling in the Arctic circle, they’ll want to make sure someone’s around to hear it.
~The From Silence EP is out 3rd October 2011 in select stores, and gets a full release the 7th November 2011.~