Epic soundscapes.
For a band that's only two years old, Aerial is already producing some surprisingly complex and mature sounds. Following swiftly on the heels of their debut full length "Black Rain From The Bombing", second album "The Sentinel" sees the Swedish five piece creating even bigger sweeping gestures; like a mash up of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Múm and Cave in (in their spacey-prog days), their walls of intense feedback and sections of melancholic yet beautifully understated minimalism are backed up by a surprisingly melodic backbone.
The album begins with 'Heads gone', a collage of sampled voices Grandaddy-esqe vocals over the top and a gentle tune which segues into 'My God, It's Full Of Stars' when a memorable guitar riff takes over, bringing a crescendo of uplifting and spine tingling noise that is a feature of the record throughout. The delicate balance of beautiful sounds, overwhelming crescendos and catchy tunes is what makes this album special; sure we've heard the walls-of-epic-noise thing a fair few times now from bands like Múm, Mono, Sigur Rós et al, but Aerial still manage to invest the songs with their own distinctive flavour by mirroring the spacey feel of the music in the lyrics which often focus on sci-fi themes and a preoccupation with technology.
"The Sentinel" is often drenched in echoes, and the moody soundscapes are sometimes infused with ambient noises like cars driving past, planes overhead and distant voices, this gives many of the tracks a lonely, dreamy quality; take the nearly eight minute long 'Walk With Me' which makes you feel as if you are floating in a huge expanse of open space; but they always manage to bring you home again with a snippet of warm melody here and there and some sweet, endearing vocals, or a blast of heavy fuzz to wake you up with a start. Sometimes though, amongst all the atmospherics the album kicks into a different gear with a guitar heavy rock song, like 'You Will Die, All Things Will', of course it's still quirky and off kilter and occasionally jagged but it's also rough and intense. Whether tracks on "The Sentinel" are drifting in space or being grounded by melody and tuneful vocals, they consistently impress with their depth and energy.