Review Summary: Not quite an EP, but almost perfect nonetheless.
If you've ever read a review or lurked the comments on any post-rock album on SputnikMusic, you will have undoubtedly noticed that almost every single one of them discusses how cliched the genre is. This makes sense, considering that the genre itself is a cliche--the term Post-Rock refers to a very specific sound, mood, dynamic structure, and instrumentation. A post-rock album is expected to have less than ten tracks, with a majority of these over eight minutes long. For the most part, they will start off subdued and quiet, with a single wandering guitar or violin line, before drums come in, then bass and other instruments, until, after multiple minutes of a single melody line building and building and building, it reaches a huge crescendo, and the track ends with the coming down of this explosion. The best example of this would be 'Moya' by genre favourites Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
However, there is the rare occasion when a band escapes the genre definition, yet is still definitely post-rock. Worriedaboutsatan are this rare band. Fusing electronic-ambiance with a distinctly distortion-tinged post-rock aesthetic, they create a very unique, emotive sound. Over the five tracks (the first one being under 10 seconds in length) of their second record, aptly titled
EP02, Worriedaboutsatan meander in and out of beats, melodies, and on one rare occasion, vocal lines. It is truly difficult to call this an EP--it easily breaks the 30-minute mark, and four of the six songs easily break the six-minute mark. However, even for an overlong EP, this album never bores. It is consistently gorgeous and powerful. The emotions encased within are nothing short of beauty, and the album is emotional without being loud or obtrusive.
Opening track "The Butterfly Effect" begins with wandering electronic beats, before adding in some clean guitar parts. However, after a brief ambient break, you discover what makes this album so perfect. A beautiful, melodic, distorted lead guitar line comes in, and washes over the other tones of the song, before the beats are brought back in, with the guitar line fading in and out over the electronics. The song continues in this fashion, until eventually devolving into ambiance again. The rest of the album continues in a similar fashion, feeling more as if the musicians found the music rather than composed it, stumbling into a gorgeous keyboard part here, uncovering an infectious guitar part there, and running into fitting electronic drum parts every which way. And then about a third of the way into track 4 on the album, "Relative Minors," they find a vocal line, immediately destroying any preconceived notions of this album being an instrumental post-rock journey, and giving you the feeling that the whole first half of the album was just the prelude to this moment, with the lyrics
I keep saying things I don't mean...and meaning things I don't say.
Throughout the entirety of
EP02, Worriedaboutsatan prove themselves to be one of the most original and potent newcomers to a scene with far too many many bands who are a copy of a copy of a copy of Mogwai. This album is not only a breath of fresh air for a slightly stale genre, but a masterpiece of beauty, subtlety, and natural emotion.
