Review Summary: Take a little walk through the back of your mind...
How long does it take for a band to prove to it's audience what they're truly capable of? A few years? A few albums? Well, the truth is that the time it takes for a band to fully live up to their potential varies from band to band. With Hammock, however, the post-rock duo hit the ground running with their debut album
Kenotic, a record that would no doubt please the handful of fans that they managed to garner in those early days. Their 2005 EP,
Stranded Under Endless Sky, serves as nothing short of an outstanding follow-up to the debut release just earlier that year.
Stranded Under Endless Sky is everything that a fan of Hammock would expect them to release, yet manages to remain exempt of predictability. It contains four beautifully crafted songs that are some of their most uplifting and yet melancholic to date. One of the greatest things about this EP is the fact that each tune is a highlight in and of itself. The opening title track, for example, kicks the record off with the sound of a train whizzing by, then quickly transforms into one of the most melodically depressing yet undeniably addictive ambient pieces of music one's ears could have the pleasure of encountering. The band continues to keep true to their trademark blend of ambient music and post-rock on tracks like "Birds Flying in Sequence," a song with a much happier tone that other musicians in the genre strive to achieve without sounding forced. When all aspects of the album are considered, the only criticism that can really be made about
Stranded Under Endless Sky is in regards to the record's short length. Typically, making this sort of a claim about an EP sounds unreasonable, but here the songs feel as though they were meant to be supported by other tracks that aren't here, like something is just... missing. Also, the music on this EP is so magical that you're going to wish it was much longer than a mere twenty-five minutes. Regardless, these are factors that can mostly be overlooked in the long run. What you really got in the end with
Stranded Under Endless Sky is one of the deepest, most spectacular EPs you will hear in a long time, which is just one of the many things Hammock proves to be capable of here.
