Review Summary: Logic boards
Time ticks irregularly for the internal clock of
Growing. The seconds move by - one step, two steps. A nice little waltz it could be - but then two more footprints find themselves embedded into the pattern. The guitars, adamant in their refusal to settle, leap back and forth with sharp turns and cutting stares. The choreographers, steady-handed bass and sure-footed drums, look on in approval.
Growing picks itself off the ground with nonchalant ease. It doesn’t dance for your pleasure, more so its own - its movements are sometimes erratic, not always pleasing on an instinctive level. Yet cold rigidity also characterizes its jumps within the two- or three-chord motifs that are favoured throughout. There are calculations to be done within the span of track, estimations of the most logical distance to be travelled within a runtime. Is the fifth interval more perfect, or the fourth? The inner monologue of
Growing is a visible cog in the transparent machine, meant to be seen and born as a symbol of pride. That’s where the real pleasure lies, the record thinks; it’s in pure contemplation.
I can’t deny that there is a meditative quality to the cool repetition of
Growing. It isn’t a terribly emotive work, tugging at the neurones rather than the heartstrings. It has no definitive mood, no set facial expressions, perhaps not even a proper face. We’re left with nothing but notes puncturing the air with dots and circles. Whether there is any meaning to the sequences is irrelevant, and
Growing teases us with a lack of any obvious chord resolutions. At some point it actually becomes more comfortable to cease all efforts at understanding; better to let your mind flow along to the record’s own thoughts instead of substituting your own. There’s a reassuring solidity to the grooves that are computed with precision and unerring drive.
Growing is only cold in the sense that a robot could be perceived as such - a person being cold is actively shirking you, there’s an element of anger - but this automaton never had a choice in its demeanour. For the most part, anyway.
Growing, mostly instrumental, possesses some surprising humanity with its final moments - there are vocals to be heard for the first and last time. The change in tone is abrupt. The opener, “Centipede’s Dream”, had led me to expect something chillier than the bulk of the material; I felt the absence of its eerie electronic washes after it ended. Now, nearing the end, I’m facing another unexpected transformation. The serrated, angular riffs of yore have been replaced with quasi-twinkling plucks and harmonious shimmering. No doubt, the second portion of “People Staying Awake” is a lovely little piece. But it suffers from memory loss about its identity and that of the record as a whole. It’s as if
Growing forgot its routine and broke out into an improvisation mid-way. The judges might be moved to tears, but there will still be a penalty for failing to follow the prescribed genre of choreography.
I’m left with a bittersweet smile at the thought of what could have been, had these Californian math rockers chosen to build a different album. When
Growing breaks out of its programming, it’s shockingly alive. But even as it is, it’s still an intriguing invention to observe.
