ALL THE
ISLANDS - polarise
(CD, How
is annie records)
I said it many times before but I am a sucker or bass
sounds. All kinds of bass sounds from heavy electro dub to subsonic buzzes
and from double bass metal drums to the refined boom of a cool jazzer, but
heavily distorted walls of driving bass sounds will hold a special place in
my heart forever. Does anybody remember that shortlived band from the
mid-Nineties named God Machine, who on the two double albums they concieved
honed this kind of bass sound I am thinking of right now to perfection? One
of the bandmembers died, if I remember correctly, and the other went on to
form an interesting but nothing more pathos-pop-band that was too depressive
for stadiums but also too big for smaller venues.
The Norwegian quartet All the Islands also display a
big sound, maybe too big for their means at times, but always effectful.
Their triple guitar and tripple vocal approach, though the latter sometimes
a little too much for their abilites probably, at the best times of the
album forms a thick carpet of booming distorted sound that floats on a
melody that is somewhere between shouted orders and melancholy. At times
they lean back into plucking and singing like the best of the shoegazer
bands from a few years back, e.g. Stone Roses, Ride, anything on Creation
records back then, only to at some moment in time skip all levers to one
side and let an incredible wall of sound blow out of your speakers, through
your mind and out the windows. As if they take the desert and prairies out
of stoner rock
and relocate the sound to a mid-european, urban setting.
With a concept like this it is clear that they do take
their time. Things like these have to evolve and I am glad to say that they
hit the right moment in time to “go” very well. This, in more
consequence, also means that there is little to no room for freedom or
improvising, because all the arrangements are subordinated to the
effectiveness of the song. And those songs do contain a degree of complexity
in their arrangements, even if the listener only realises after several
times of sitting down with this album. I bet they like to listen to old Pink
Floyd albums at home just as much as they like to listen to modern
electronica albums when hitting the bars and nightclubs of Oslo.
After all, silence is not a possible escape. Wiggo
Evensens drumming is expressive and wild at the right places, Magnus Dahle
Larssen, Lars Ivar Hoelstad and Jan Berg aren’t afraid of playing a well
places interlude (dare not call it a solo) as they ain’t abject to playing
unisono for maximum effect. Sometimes they get a little wilder, sometimes
even screaming and banging, but mostly they stay well in midtempo areas
where the driving pounding and massive walls of sound have the best effect.
Best of all, this never gets boring during the whole length of the record.
No, every time they kick back in again is another dose of adrenaline and
happiness.
