Review Summary: Maturity and patience for a debut of anything is quite rare for most and has gotten me eager for their full-length offering.
The Pirate Ship Quintet has one of the best British cellists in your company (full-time with the London Symphony Orchestra). As a post-rock artist this definitely doesn’t hurt your cause for entering the post-rock landscape that is already cluttered. This self-titled EP is very slow and almost lifeless in its tone. What is truly extraordinary is the impact the cello has on the entire EP and the band itself. It drives every movement and aperture of every track, until that is the rest of the band has the chance to shine in their own way. “Lost Science” for example, it truly doesn’t pick up until the halfway mark where the rest of the band seems to be in tuned with the cello. The cello itself is what holds it together up to that point – chilling and intense in every way imaginable. This 5-piece band shows tons of promise from the opening track, not only for their patience, charisma, but also talent.
If “Lost Science” couldn’t conjure up some type of hysteria with its wavering tradition of classical cello and modern guitar layers halfway in, then “I Kina Spiser De Hund” might. It’s lush and upright soundscape of guitar layers and distorted atmosphere could be compared to Isis to a lesser extent. “ I Kina Spiser De Hund” takes this direction and scraps for quite some time, instead of its repetitive and already built up style they condense to a most frightening cello with the piano holding the dark one-key tone. Much like “Lost Science” it tends to pick up halfway through the track. The rest of the band shines through, while the cellist keeps in form. The Pirate Ship Quintet’s EP shows some extreme maturity for a group’s debut EP. For any band in post-rock patience needs to be key to creating memorable buildups and hauntingly lush atmospheres. The Pirate Ship Quintet really knows where to get started on this EP and work their way through it easily.
The 3-track EP closes out with “Pirate Ship”, the longest track entry of the 3; “Pirate Ship” starts out progressively quicker than usual. Its pace is a lot less subdued and deliberate than its predecessors, yet pardon the contradictory statement is quite the same vein as the others. Not only does feel a lot quicker, but the time passes by easier compared to the previous 2 tracks. “Pirate Ship” shows flashes of dynamic lucidity within the shadows until it changes direction in the 5 minute-mark. What had been missing in the previous 2 entries is here by the end of the 11-minute journey. The closer, “Pirate Ship” contains a “post-rock style” epic ending that we’re all accustomed too. The Pirate Ship Quintet shows tons of talent and the maturity to strive for more. Only recently have they decided to quit their regular jobs to pursue their passion of music (they were all scattered across the cities of U.K. unable to work every day). If there is one problem that is evident within this album is its repetitive structure within every track, not in form, but at its core. Every track starts to gradually gains strength and steam until it moves to its next phase, there isn’t an epic, lush, explosive element within any of these songs, just contained optimism could be said for all (“Pirate Ship” could be the exception). So, do I look forward to their debut record? Of course I am. I’ve just been waiting for 2 years.
If you're interested in listening.
Blog Donwload:
http://www.thesirenssound.com/2009/05/23/the-pirate-ship-quintet-the-pirate-ship-quintet/
MySpace Streaming 2 first tracks:
http://www.myspace.com/thepirateshipquintet
Enjoy.
