Review Summary: Rustic, thoughtful, and sad
The Foel Tower is a post-rock album. It’s not otherworldly beautiful and built upon worship of the almighty crescendo, though. Instead, Bristol’s Quade harkens back to the days of bands like Talk Talk and Tortoise, an era when “post-rock” suggested something much more unpredictable and experimental, creatively restless acts crafting artsy and atmospheric tunes fueled by the congealing of various genre traditions. Here, I particularly feel the influence of Bark Psychosis’ classic
Hex, even as
The Foel Tower transfers the former’s urban vibes to a folkier, Celtic energy indicative of the remote Welsh setting where the band holed up to record this album. It’s this earthy yet emotional underbelly which successfully ties together the record’s six tracks, whether it’s the ominous slowcore-esque blaring of “See Unit”, the brooding ambient of “Nannerth Ganol”, or the drifting melancholy of “Black Kites”. In the end, if
The Foel Tower reads as revivalist, it’s at least creative enough to stand apart from the bulk of contemporary acts in the scene, and the results speak loudly, resonating as one hell of a lonesome, dreary mood piece.
