Review Summary: An promising post rock debut with plenty of talent and potential at their disposal.
Dream In Tongues is one of those cases where one could judge how the album will sound just by looking at it. The splash of bright colors coupled with the flowers really foreshadow how the album will be radiant, inspiring and never fail to put the listener in a fantastic mood.
Dream In Tongues' vibrant atmosphere and incredibly polished instrumentation proves to be undeniably well played and brings to mind the more eventful side of Explosions In The Sky and the more mellow side of Cloudkicker. Rest assured, Arms Of Tripoli have crafted a surprisingly exceptional post rock album that excretes talent, uncharacteristically fantastic production for an underground band and the most important aspect of them all: Potential for the future.
One can’t escape how unknown Arms Of Tripoli is and one would expect great production to be a work in progress from an up and coming band. However, right from the start of “Miniature Habitats” we get the sense that the band poured all of their heart and soul into the production. Every instrument gets their moment in the spotlight and it certainly helps that it’s all played exceptionally well. The listener will be sucked into “Miniature Habitat’s” fantastic guitar riffs and brilliant dazzling mood. However, despite sounding like the bands mentioned above the structure of most of the songs on
Dream In Tongues are not carbon copies of these band’s songs. Arms Of Tripoli strives to convey more melody and has an emphasis on providing a more eventual post rock experience than creating extremely long builds. “Escalator Jazz” and “10th Graders Forever” are the best examples of the band’s more song like structures. “Escalator Jazz” never slows down as soon as it starts and it’s immediately accessible due to its fast, upbeat guitar work and ever so present yet creative bass riffs. “10th Graders Forever” shows the more beautiful side of the album with its gingerly played guitar work and wonderful crescendo in the last couple of minutes. The best part about
Dream In Tongues is how immediately accessible the mood and could be best served as a starting point for the genre.
However, make no mistake that the album has its fair share of dark, brooding post rock moments and those moments reside in the album highlight “Snowed In.” It’s this song where the fantastic drumming shines and they really create a vast soundscape along with the chilling guitar riff. Imagine an epic movie that showcases an overwhelming scope and this is where this song belongs. It creates a stunning mood and the band’s cohesive musicianship really shines through here. Though the song it undoubtedly a highlight, it does stick out like a sore thumb because of its chilling, epic nature and it comes out of nowhere. Rest assured, “Snowed In” should have been saved for the end because it would have made for an epic closer.
Dream In Tongues proves to be an extremely refreshing look at the unknown post rock scene. It dazzles with its incredible production and undeniably upbeat mood and atmosphere. Anyone looking to get into post rock should definitely us this as a first album because it manages to be accessible even if it is a bit derivative. Some parts however do feature some been-there-done-that aspects, but they are nonetheless well played and the numerous influences are used to their advantage. They have tons of talent at their disposal and the future looks incredibly bright for them.
