Noise, noise, noise. My goodness, it's noisy
The world is a noisy place. By simply walking down the street or sticking your head out of the bedroom window you expose your ears to a rich tapestry of sounds. Car horns are softly tooted by octogenarian couples in recognition of old friends, birds purr lullabies to the trees, an out of tune piano warbles across a deserted metropolis like a hay bale blowing through a frontier town. Or if you live in South-East London, pimped-up Renault 5s blast out Usher albums at full volume, tramps ask you if you've got a spare Mayfair and huge Neanderthals urinate in doorways while insulting you for clambering into a pair of blue corduroy flares that morning.
There is no escaping meaningless noise - unless you take a Walkman, I-Pod or whatever with you wherever you go and at least then you've got total control over the crap that you pour into your side plates. At this point, you may be wondering why I'm rambling on about noise when I'm supposed to be reviewing an album? Because this album IS noise. And not in a "Hey, I've just heard some great noise" kind of way. It's just, well, NOISE. Let me show you what I mean...
'Pengatross' opens on a bed of crisp, leafy feedback, punctuated by a sharply acerbic guitar dressing, fruity drums (God, I can't keep this up anymore - I was stupid to think I could try and use salad as a metaphoric tool) and a second and softly harmonic guitar. This trundles on for a couple of minutes until it all goes a bit metal and the song roars into life (then death) with a vengeance. Whenever I listen to an instrumental track, I always assume that the clue is in the title. Consequently, since I have no idea what a pengatross is, I have no idea what this song is about. The track is decent enough in execution and if you're a fan of post-rock melodics, you'll probably love it.
Another melodic guitar weave gives life to 'That Was No Accident' and goes...nowhere. That's yer lot - one minute and forty seconds worth of simple drumming and six-string meandering. Again, maybe the clue is in the title, though 'That Was No Accident' conjures memories of woeful conspiracy films and Alec Guinness in 'Star Wars' ("That's no moon..."). Just what was the accident - or non-accident as this track would have it? I'm confused. To be perfectly frank, I'm inclined to believe that as this track starts and ends blindly, it was no accident that the other twenty minutes of it were thrown into the bin.
'Fury Against The Formless' continues where 'Accident' leaves off, though takes the listener into the murkier territory of heavy rock/metal once more. While there is a palpable anger to be felt when the track proper kicks in, it is hard to unearth the point to it all. 'Fury Against The Formless' - again, what does this mean? Let's leave that until later and continue on regardless shall we?
'I Laughed Until I Stopped Laughing' can be summed by my response to it: I laughed until it stopped, while 'Rwanda', '-' and 'Hired Guns Of The Old West' follow the album's now established formula of a delicately subtle introduction, punctured by a melange of feedback, scratchy guitars and furious tub-thumping.
It's probably about now that you're beginning to seriously doubt my abilities as a music reviewer, isn't it? I've not imparted any earth-shattering critical incisiveness at all and you probably think I just enjoy ripping the guts out of poor defenceless artists for my own amusement. Well, it's your right and your privilege if you do think so and I would never argue against it - though you are ridiculously misguided. So in an effort to understand what this record is about and to try to prove to you that I do put some effort into these reviews, let's see what the record company blurb has to say about them, shall we? Maybe they can shed some light on matters...
"Their approach - expanding themes in a manner akin to jazz improvisers, turning gentle melodies into white squalls of screaming rage...is the element that makes Let Aeroplanes...so vital and so endlessly fascinating." And: "If it had to be compared to a film, it would be closer to Darren Aronofsky's "Pi" - sinister, dark, grainy and not obvious but undeniably compelling." Am I missing something here? Can you spot what they've left out too? The reason.
What is the reason behind the band's approach? What is the reason for choosing to make music in the way that they do? What is the reason for their existence? A band without direction, without a reason is like parking a Ferrari in a garage and never driving it: It might look pretty to look at but if you don't get behind the wheel and cane it down the motorway, what was the point in buying it in the first place? And to compare 'Let Aeroplanes Circle Overhead' to Daren Aronofsky's "Pi" is incredulous. Aronofsky's film takes immeasurable instruction from its subject: mathematics. Both the narrative and the form of the film are structured like a mathematical equation - both in terms of its mechanical and aesthetic components i.e. its mise-en-scene, editing, sound, actor's performances, as well as the narrative itself: man unearths a mathematical equation that could solve the stock market. The seemingly disparate characters, narrative events and the scattergun employment of diverse cinematic techniques are played with, combined and calculated to produce a definable sum, a movie that might be an exigent beast and troublesome in its deconstruction but which possess a tangibility - both in terms of the narrative and the product itself. It has a reason, a focus and above all a point that resonates. Can the same be said of 'Let Aeroplanes Circle Overhead'? Not a chance.
I hate writing negative reviews. For a start I have a wildly overactive conscience and laughably stupid opinion as to the weight of my critical musings. I regularly fear that after reading my review the band in question are going to decide that it's not worth the effort and throw themselves off Clifton Suspension Bridge in a bizarre suicide pact. But I'm starting to learn that you've got to be true to your own opinions and your own feelings. I'm sorry to say it guys, but I just didn't get it. Yes, the music was professionally performed and excellently mixed and produced, but for me there was no hook, nothing to grab me by the throat, to make me gasp and force me to pay attention. To me, it was just noise.