A step away from the Slint influence and more along the lines of jamming and post-punk, Tropics And Meridians is the sound of being trapped in an old wooden ship at sea, about to sink. The songs are a bit more thematic than June Of 44's debut, but one wonders if perhaps they couldn't have included one more track on this six-song set; but no matter... The music is more progressive, with no discernible traditional song structures, yet the songs themselves are a bit disjointed from one another; the high-end, soft guitar lines do sound more confidently written and played than those on Engine Takes To The Water, and the math-rock parts start sounding more like noisy funk (see the fantastic bridge of "Anisette", "June Leaf", and the metaphorical boat finally going down to the depths in "Sanctioned In A Birdcage"). Most telling, however, is "Arms Over Arteries" - the fragile guitar dissonance, rolling drums, and low-hum singing is expanded on in later albums.
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