Crippled Black Phoenix - 200 Tons Of Bad Luck

200 Tons Of Bad Luck

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Tracklist:
1 Burnt Reynolds
2 Rise Up and Fight
3 Time of Ye Life / Born for Nothing / Paranoid Arm Of Narcoleptic Empire
4 Wendigo
5 Littlestep
6 Crossing the Bar
7 Whissendine
8 A Real Bronx Cheer
9 444
10 A Hymn for a Lost Soul
11 A Lack of Common Sense
12 I Am Free, Today I Perished


For a band that has described their songs as "end time ballads" there's certainly a lot of life affirming moments in Crippled Black Phoenix's music. And there should be - with 200 Tons Of Bad Luck clocking in at 1 hour and 20 minutes, it's not going to give you a quick fix. It is however, a grand post rock epic, and well deserving of your time.
200 Tons Of Bad Luck is borne out of a previously released 2 disc collection by CBP- The Resurrectionists, and Night Raider. This record then aims to take the best and most cohesive songs from the two albums and condense it into one. With the aforementioned album length, condensed probably isn't the best way to describe this album, but largely they have managed to select the best cuts from their previous works.

200 Tons... begins with Burnt Reynolds, and an eerie Pink Floyd esque synth in the background. It's properly spooky, it lasts for like a minute and a half, just synth and woodwind. It sets the tone perfectly for the grandeur of what's to come on this record. Some solid bass playing by Mogwai's Dominic Aitchison lead into the very prog rock opening of the record. Even the watery sounding guitar grooves sound like they could be taken from something off Wish You Were Here. A series of melodic chants and vocals make way for this song's glorious climax. There's suprisingly a few almost cheesy moments on this album, but it's never that over done, and it sort of goes hand in hand with the level of end of the world music we're talking about here.
Rise Up And Fight does what it says on the tin. The mournful brooding of the first track gets a swift kick up the arse and we're straight into some four horsemen of the apocalypse guitar chugging.

The 18 minute epic beginning with Time Of Ye Life......sounds as if it was written solely to satisfy my post rock tastes. Emotional old man speech over delayed guitars? Yes plx. A somberly delivered speech is combined with some GY!BE style guitars to create a genuinely emotional track, with words of wisdom courtesy of Evil Knievel. I actually thought it was by some American President before I found out who it was.....it's pretty stirring. There's something about the seriousness/sadness of the music with the speech that just works. Have a listen, anyway. The track develops into what really does sound like an end time ballad, with post rock, prog and folk colliding into a real epic. 18 minutes though....jesus. That's like.....most of a Simpsons episode. Or if you tuned into an episode of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares after 18 minutes.....you'd be pissed. Stick with it though, it'll reward you in the end, and not in the sort of, i'm knackered but i'm glad I can say I stuck with it, kind of way. The fuck yeah, kind of way.
Wendigo gives us a much needed 3:50 song. Yes! A normal lengthed song. But they still haven't found a sense of humour, laying on some truely depressing folk doom. Chances are you didn't start start listening to Crippled Black Phoenix thinking they were the next Flight Of The Concords though, so suckem.
Littlestep isn't spectacular, but it's nice to hear vocals again, as in this case they do lend something to the album. Words, ofc.
Crossing The Bar starts off with charming acoustic picking and an ominous bass drum of death. If Robin Hood had this as his theme tune, he'd get a lot more rEEspect. Before it turned into the touching piano ballad toward the end, after which he'd get beaten up by the tough kids. The violin laden I am Free, Today I Perished plays out the album in suitably victorian style.

200 Tons Of Bad Luck is a great album, and would definetely be my post rock album of the the year so far were it not for a certain local band winning everyones hearts. It's pretty heavy, at the many times previously mentioned one hour and twenty minutes it's not going to give a quick fix. But it's worth taking some time out to savour, it's an emotional album combined with doom laden inspirational instrumentation. It sounds at times like something out of the 19th century, and at others like a Pink Floyd collaboration. What it is undoubtedly though, is a worthwhile work of rock grandeur, an accquired taste, and one that will contstantly reward.

8.8/10

Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. "

Bloc Party - Intimacy Remixed

Intimacy Remixed

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1. Ares - Villains Remix
2. Mercury - Hervé Is In Disarray Remix
3. Halo - We Have Band Dub Remix
4. Biko - Mogwai Remix
5. Trojan Horse - John B Remix
6. Signs - Armand Van Helden Remix
7. One Month Off - Filthy Dukes Remix
8. Zephyrus - Phase One Remix
9. Talons - Phones RIP Remix
10. Better Than Heaven - No Age Remix
11. Ion Square - Banjo or Freakout Remix
12. Letter To My Son - Gold Panda Remix
13. Your Visits Are Getting Shorter - Double D Remix


This is actually pretty good. I haven't really been excited about anything Bloc Party have done since......Silent Alarm really. It also perhaps speaks volumes that they didn't even bother to have a remixed album of A Weekend In The City, and cut straight to their third album, reinforcing my belief that the producer for their second album (Jack Knife Lee) is a spo and has ruined several of my favourite bands.

While Intimacy was a bit of an improvement on AWITC, it was still a bit of a halfway house. You can't open with the neo apocalypctic rave of Ares and have the most Banquet sounding song since Banquet (One Month Off) sitting comfortably in the same room, really. Intimacy Remixed, then, is really what Intimacy should have been. The band have made no secret about wanting to go all electro on us, so just get on with it. Having said that, these remixes are obviously by other people, but the source material's there.

Ares - Villains Remix is simply Ares cranked up a notch. It takes the moodiness of the original and cranks everything up. The building electronics and thumping bass makes this track amazing, and Intimacy Remixed immediately has your attention. A bit like a Death From Above remix, the waxy bassline is a whole heap of fun, and the provocative lyrics of "Get out of the way, or get fucked up" make this a great choice to stick on if you plan on getting in a fight tonight.
The remix of Mercury sounds a lot more natural, oddly, with a heap of electronics and keyboards wacked on top of it. It certainly didn't make me cringe upon first listen as the original did. The thick bass and drums make you feel as if you should be raving under a bridge, but it's still a lot of fun, and is a lot easier to listen to than the original was. This is how this song should have turned out, minus the lolwut brass section of the original.
The rework of Halo is a lot more reserved than anything else on the album, and has a few charming blips and blops. The faced paced guitars of the original have been stripped away in favour of swirling vocals and a nearly dream pop esque bassline.

Mogwai let me down. Biko hasn't changed spectacularly, and is still moody and forlorn, which is probably why Mogwai got to remix it, but it's still not very original. It's barely changed really, and if you didn't know who was remixing it you probably wouldn't be able to churn out a guess, save for "Someone boring". Think I might stick to the original. Trojan Horse is....haha....great. It really does make you feel like a moke listening to it though, as you are instantly transported to a Ministry of Sound gig in the Odyssey Arena. There's a real darkness to it though, it's cless.

Theres a lot of flac up until the Talons remix, which, being done by someone who's been remixing Bloc Party since about half an hour after they formed, should be good. It is, and leads nicely onto the intense No Age remix of Better Than Heaven, the duo doing themselves proud here. There's something strangely enjoyable about the Letter To My Son remix. It's quite idiosyncratic and charming, and at parts downright odd. It's very nice, actually (Poet Laureate here I come).
Your Visits Are Getting Shorter plays the album out nicely, parts of it which might not sound out of place on Royksopp's latest. Perhaps. Certain bits of this also sound like they could be taken from a record by The Field (Check him out- minimal techno ftw).

The album isn't perfect, there's a lot of songs here that are just remixes by numbers. One thing's for certain though, if you're at a party and it's the sort of crowd that like the new Kings of Leon record but haven't heard of Squarepusher, this will be an instant pleaser. No effort, stick this on, let party and drinking commence. Some remixes here do what a good remix should : either speed up the original and make it sound more badass, (Ares, Mercury)
or transform the original into something completely different altogether (Halo, Better Than Heaven). That's not to say that there's only 4 good songs on this, not at all, and it's still probably the best electronic album i've heard so far this year. Sadly that isn't saying a lot, but there are suprising moments of originality and idiosyncracy in this record that ensure it's an improvement upon the original in many ways.


Intimacy 2.0

7.5/10

Alarma Man - S/T

Alarma Man

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Tracklist:
1. Sweden Sweden
2. Cheese My Dad
3. Fell in Love With a Woman Twice My Size
4. I Am Eleven Years Old, I Have No Animals
5. Signed Up for Games and Theory
6. High Tech Towers
7. Shut Up or Chaque Jour
8. This Is Not a Teaser
9. Illuminati
10. Viper


I had to blog this, as it's recently began to gain an unshakeable foothold in my listening time. A shame that not more people have heard of these folks, Alarma Man is the aural equivalent of being shaken roughly and given a slap in the face before eating some ice cream. This record has some wonderfully fun moments and a few genuine tunes, but you'll have to fight through aggressive math rock buggery to get there. This ain't foals.

Album opener Sweden Sweden starts off with a squealing guitar rallying call, before hurtling along through an auditory thorn bush of guitars. The bass and drums then pave the way for some seriously pent up guitar frustration, and the motherfucking ghost train kicks back into action again. It's hard not to listen to this with a dumbass grin on your face. The track soon develops into a two hand tapping math rock extravaganza.
The album continues at the same breakneck speed, but gratification is rarely as instant as the first track. Cheese My Dad is what the mob would have as their soundtrack, assuming they were down with the Swedish instrumental scene. A genuinely dark and arrogant bugger, it still manages to get under your skin. Then again, so do BCG injections.

Fell in Love With a Woman Twice My Size recalls some of the insta catchyness of the albums first track, and is frikkin' fantastic. You'll know what bit i'm talking about when it kicks in. Yeeaaaaah. Catchy as herpes. The main verse (?) slams into your head and when that hook starts playing, it probably seems a lot more perfect than it is, by contrast. I mean, if you'd just spent a week walking in the desert with barely enough water to survive, you'd be able to force yourself to drink a pint of Stella. If you were in the pub with your mates, the thought of the same pint would quite rightly turn you. Having said that, it's still brilliant, and an album highlight.

I Am Eleven Years Old, I Have No Animals must surely have left the bassist with carpal tunnel syndrome. It's not particularly melodic, but what it lacks in tuneage it makes up for in being fucking insane. You're not going to put it on at a family do instead of Chasing Cars or Fix You, but if you're pumped or you've just had a particularly strong coffee, yes. This'll do it.

Signed Up for Games and Theory is a bit more of a slow burner, and not really what you want when listening to this sort of music, really. Though, a slow burner in these guys terms is still like being twatted with a bulldozer. It's not as fun as other tracks on the album, but still manages to sound like it's boring through your skull.
High Tech Towers marches along angrily before unleashing a turbo charged melee of power chords and tech metal tapping. Again it ruffs you up at the start, but ultimately your patience is rewarded.

The album chugs away at a similiar runaway train on fire speed for the remainder, with closer Viper in particular offering some menacing math punk. It encapsulates the overall sound of the album into five and a half minutes, and successfully references the touchstones of this band - the likes of Refused and Don Caballero- and still manages to imprint their catchy, punch in the face sound.

As an album, it isn't spectacular, there's some tracks that Alarma Man could do without, or that they should have spent more time on or replaced with other tracks. It does however have some brilliant standout tracks, and they alone are worth a listen of this album. As an entire album it's still enoyable though- whether you're after a 3 minute catchy instrumental punk song, or want something to soundtrack you going insane, there's something here for everyone.

One that shouldn't have been a silent alarm.

7.2/10

Boxcutter - Arecibo Message

Arecibo Message

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Tracklist:
1. Sidetrak
2. Mya Rave v2
3. Arecibo Message
4. S p a c e b a s s
5. Arcadia 202
6. Old School Astronomy
7. A Familiar Sound
8. Free House Acid
9. Sidereal Day
10. Otherside Remix (Earth Is My Spaceship)
11. Lamp Post Funk
12. Kab 28
13. A Cosmic Parent


Boxcutter, or Barry Lynn when he's at home, is a well established artist in the nationwide Dubstep/electro scene. Far from being a Northern Irish artist who's done quite well for himself "despite" coming from N.I., instead much of us haven't paid much attention whilst he's been making a name for himself across the water. His previous album, Glyphic, was a thoroughly enjoyable piece of chilled out dubstep, Arecibo Message is distinctly darker and seemingly aimed more squarely at da club.

Sidetrak starts off tentatively enough, with bassy drones and spooky electronics. It's darker than previous works, and after a lengthy intro kicks off into dubby bass and a cacophony of drum clashes. The trademark jungle flute noises that you can't quite put your finger on are still present, as the brooding bassline plays us out, and into the definitively more upbeat Mya Rave v2. Well with a title like that it should be, really. It's a much more lively affair and is the sort of thing I wouldn't mind hearing on the dancefloor. If this was the sort of thing they played at the Box, then i'd have no problem. Once they sorted the crowd out, that is. Blippity bloppity fast paced electronics and a dark bassline ensure this one's the one you'll be skipping back to. On your iPod that is, not in the camp way.

Title track Arecibo Message starts off with a few strange noises that sounds like a robot being disturbed from hangover sleep (Trust me). The thuddy bassline and creepy as fuck samples combine with the emergence of what sounds like a SNES end of level boss tune to create something truly....odd.

S p a c e b a s s delivers a funky bassline to ensure the creepysong/danceysong/creepysong/danceysong order is preserved. It's hard to write about and describe music like this that doesn't sit still for more than a few seconds, like a hyperactive dubstep child. It does however manage to sound innovative and again gives you a sense of pride that this kind of music is being made on your doorstep, it is possible to be inventive and DIY without plugging in a guitar and hitting overdrive.

Arcadia 202 is a bit of a slowburner.....well.....as much as a song lasting 3:14 can be. It chirps along fairly unremarkably to be honest...until the last minute or so when it starts to give a fuck a bit more. It's not unpleasant, but it doesn't help this albums flaw of slipping into the void of background music.

A Familiar Sound gets the guest vocals out for the leds, and helps give Arecibo Message a nice reference point. This is what you've listened up to, now let's listen to the rest of the album, kind of thing. It's again, not spectacular, but it's pretty cool and the watery electronics and echo vocal effects all add to the sense that you get whilst listening that hey, you're a pretty cool guy/girl.

Things thankfully pick up again with Free House Acid. The insane grandfather clock noise in the background and random blips and blops make this a pretty fun tune and gives the listener a break from the more creepy dubstep on the album.
Lamp Post Funk is great. I was going to say it does exactly what it says on the tin, but I don't know what brand of funk is befitting for a Lamp Post, tbfh. It's an extremely enjoyable, funky electro number though, and doesn't make you feel dirty for listening to electro dubstep which is normally enjoyed extremely late at night/early in the morning.

Arecibo Message is great fun, and it's a pretty innovative and inventive album of dubstep/electro. It manages to keep a melody throughout most of it without simply throwing a swear word in the title and basslines that will knacker your speakers. Again it's great to think that this sort of music is being produced locally, however, whilst a little solidarity may go a long way, it doesn't make up for average tunes. Discerning readers wit da eagle eyez may notice I didn't mention a few tracks. Mainly because a few tracks aren't worth mentioning. It took quite a lot of effort to listen to and review the album, that's not to say that it's by any means bad, but you have to pay some serious attention in order to see where one song ends and another begins, and while that's great at times and gives it a flow, it has a tendency to meld it into one big electro dubby mess. My standard criticism of you'dbehardpressedtowalkawayhumming, also applies here. You would have to go back and listen to specific songs to work out a tune in order to associate music with song title.

It's still thoroughly enjoyable though, one of those ones where whilst you're listening, you're like, "Yeah, I like this", you just might be hard pressed to stop on it whilst flicking through your iPod.

Even so, I hope you get the message.

7.6/10

Therapy? - Crooked Timber

Crooked Timber

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1. The Head That Tried To Strangle Itself
2. Enjoy The Struggle
3. Clowns Galore
4. Exiles
5. Crooked Timber
6. I Told You I Was Ill
7. Somnambulist
9. Magic Mountain
10. Bad Excuse For Daylight


While ASIWYFA, General Fiasco, Panama Kings and others are bringing a wave of optimism and freshness to the NI music scene, veteran rockers Therapy? have been churning out hook laden rock n roll for nearly twenty years now. Normally a band that's been under the radar for a while suddenly bringing out a new album in a midst of cool kids spells a certain ominous embarassment, an imminent realisation that they're clawing to remain relevant. Therapy?, however, aren't over complicating things on their latest, or discovering God (lol?). Instead they've kept things relatively simple, catchy as fook rock songs with meaty norn irish vocals.

The Head That Tried To Strangle Itself is exactly what you expect upon seeing the title; a sort of theme tune to insanity - Agitated riffs and vocals marching all the way into the asylum. It'll get under your skin after just a few listens and you'll be grinding your teeth to it in no time.
Enjoy The Struggle shows LaFaro just how snarly northern irish crunk should be done. A greasy bassline and hyperactive drums pave the way for Andy Cairns' rough n ready vocals, and again another arrogant riff that will sink into your cranium in no time.

Listening to album highlight Clowns Galore's riff is like being repeatedly pummeled in the ribcage by Joe Calzaghe (probably). You get the shite beaten out of you, but it's certainly an experience, and "Give the circus a break/It makes us happy" is probably going to be stuck in your head for quite some time.

Exiles shamelessly goes for a dirty main riff, and aims to have you humming it's chorus for the next few weeks. It's maybe a tad predictable, but it's pretty fuckin good, and it thankfully slows the pace down in Crooked Timber a tad.
Title track Crooked Timber shows Therapy? mixing things up, slightly. The vocals are less bulldog, more jack russell. Pinched harmonics make way for a riff that develops slowly and purposefully throughout the song, before we get a cheeky breakdown for the fans. "Times attrition, grinds these landscapes, sifts them into shape/My resistance, to its' pressure, buckles more each day." It's less guns blazing than the rest of the album, but manages to go out with venom, "My train will come for you" is delivered with suitable snarl.

The album blazes on satisfyingly enough, I Told You I Was Ill gives us some emotion from Cairns instead of the usual confident howl, as well as getting in an odd reference to Spike Milligan's gravestone.
Magic Mountain, a 10 minute long instrumental, (haha, yes, i'm home) looks terrible on paper. An ageing rock band bringing out a new album after a while......featuring an instrumental track around the same time as another instrumental band are making a name for themselves?
It works, though. With Crooked Timber being a bit, fuck you, Magic Mountain is more like, yeah, let's have a cup of tea. It's in the same vein as that Life In Technicolour number from Coldsplat's latest. Very optimistic, and pretty lovely to listen to. I have never listened to Therapy? before this, so I don't know if it's in keeping with their sound, i'm pretty sure it's not, but it's simply really nice. The ten minutes will fly in wonderfully.
Bad Excuse For Daylight is alright, but it's a bit like when you're writing the conclusion for an essay, you've blown off a night out to finish it, you've spent several hours on it already, and all you want to do is get it in the bag and not ever have to think about sociological methods ever again. It's not bad, but it seems a slight rushed ending.

Crooked Timber is pretty good. It's a shame not more of a fuss was made about this, or the press didn't make more of a song and dance over it, it's really good. It might have been enough to convince LaFaro that a handful of songs is not going to keep us going forever, and they're not the only ones going in for this hard rock malarky. If you're one of those people that cringe a wee bit when they hear a northern irish vocal, this probably isn't going to change your mind, and if you're not, well Crooked Timber probably isn't going to change your life either. It would be a damn shame, though, to let this album go under the radar.

Fire it up.

8.2/10

And So I Watch You From Afar- S/T

And So I Watch You From Afar

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Listen to the album in full

Buy It *Nods*





Tracklist:
1. Set Guitars To Kill
2. A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way
3. Clench Fists, Grit Teeth...Go!
4. I Capture Castles
5. Start A Band
6. Tip Of The Hat, Punch In The Face
7. If It Ain't Broke, Break It
8. TheseRIOTSareJUSTtheBEGINNING
9. Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate
10. The Voiceless
11. Eat The City, Eat It Whole


Well well. It's been a fair oul wait since we saw This Is Our Machine And Nothing Can Stop It and Tonight The City Burns!, and it has been worth the wait. Truth be told, neither were flawless, the latter only really gave us one standout track, and a collaboration with Jonny Black and Fighting with Wire man, which slowly started to wear on me, to be honest. It speaks volumes then that so many have been waiting in anticipation for this, their full length debut. A Little Solidarity, a 3 day event organised in November by the band designed to showcase Northern Irish talent and show a little......yeah......is partly responsible.
Most folk got swept up in the whole thing, myself included, and even if you didn't know a lot about Northern Irish music, it made you feel like you did, and you kinda thought y'know what, NI music ain't that bad really. It's pretty fucking impressive, actually.

So if you find them over hyped, over rated, or you're sick of seeing their posters, fuck up. If they didn't make you feel proud of your wee country then they at least helped give us "a fuck load of amazing music."
Another reason this album has been a long time coming for many, and this is directed towards the cynics, and those that are sick hearing their name : Instrumental post rock is a genre, that frankly, it is very easy to be ok in. Anyone can play something clean and slow for a while, and go nuts at the end of a song. Big deal. It is a genre that is bloated with copycats and mehness, and if you don't know, i'm telling you. So the praise for ASIWYFA is deserved. They aren't some pretty good instrumental band from NI, they have managed to surpass their contemporaries and should now be reckoned with on the same footing as Mogwai.

And they're exiciting. Their music is joy and rage and sadness, and it gives you a fucking boot in the side of the head. Album/live opener Set Guitars To Kill begins with an ominous marching uproar and squealing guitars, before plunging straight for the center of the earth. It doesn't let up for a second, and manages to almost perfectly capture the live chaos, minus the sweat and elbows to the face. It's post rock, but not as we know it Jim. It's fucking angry.

A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way, frankly, is the most inspirational thing i've ever heard come out of Northern Ireland. It can't be stressed enough how much this doesn't need words. Raging guitars stampede onwards while that persistent....neverending riff plays on in the background, like a countdown to the end of the world. The re-recording has been kind to this tune, everything seems better mixed and much more clear. Simply breathtaking.

I can't do every song like this because no-one's going to take the time to read it, but this album is immense. Every time you think you've guessed which direction they're taking it in, it veers off in another. Clench Fists, Grit Teeth...Go! explodes through your speakers with some serious rage, I Capture Castles has again done well from the re-recording, (props to Rocky O' Reilly) seeming more urgent, and darkly unstoppable as a result. Start A Band, far from starting off as optimistically as the title suggests, has a brooding, tortured soul of an intro. It's a lovely instrumental piece, but maybe they should have opted for a different title, as something called Start A Band should really sound like a joyous headfuck throughout. Perhaps, "An evening in with a curry and Jonathan Ross" would have been better, or "My tea's cold." Probably not, but you get the idea. It goes mental at the end as well, so we'll forgive it.

The "Hey guys, we're happy!" of Tip Of The Hat, Punch In The Face rattles along nicely without a care in the world. Until it grows up slightly at 1:17, and starts crunching through, picking up a meaty riff along the way. The heavily At The Drive In influenced, If It Ain't Broke, Break It, is an album stand out. Starting out with over a minute of sonic warfare, before progressing into crashing drums, the track develops into something truly special after around 3 minutes. This is earthquake music.
ASIWYFA calling card, TheseRIOTSareJUSTtheBEGINNING (ft. improved name) has not done so well out of a re-recording. Im tempted to just delete the new version and slip the old one in it's place. It's still good...it just feels less....dangerous. It's not as urgent, that bit at the end that gets your attention where it goes mental has slowed down noticeably....everything seems at a much more sensible volume...I dunno. I'm not sure.

Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate, soon to be the band's new comeonguyswecandothis anthem, is brilliant. It has the explosive guitars and silly noises that everyone can get behind. It's a truly optimistic number, and it isn't cheesy or contrived. It's just brilliant. And then comes that silly, Friendly Fires esque samba breakdown. Oh....ok....go on then. It's a bit silly, but in a genre that regularly takes itself too seriously, it's probably not a bad thing. Trackthatevenmumscanappreciate, The Voiceless, still sounds beautiful. It's a lovely song, and an apt penultimate number. Eat The City, Eat It Whole, sounds remarkably like Mount Kailash, but whatever. It's a darkly atmospheric closer, building on swishy swashy guitars before getting all excitable, and eventually exploding. I couldn't help but feel that Mount Kailash might have been a better album closer, despite being an old tune. It's still great though, and rampages off into the distance with a characteristic daftness.

It's not flawless, by any means. It's maybe not as trim as it could have been, and the re-recording of TheseRIOTS....is still upsetting me. But the fact that a wee band from NI are now one of the leaders in their genre, well, it's pretty darn impressive. As a debut it's incredibly strong, distinctive and fresh, in a genre that as already mentioned is full of copycats and samey-ness. If you wanted to initiate someone into post rock or instrumental with a short attention span, this would get the job done quicker than Mogwai or Sigur Ros. You're never going to be bored for long on this album, and as far as single tracks are concerned, it will keep you coming back for.....well, forever. Not only for the tunes, but cos however Northern Irish music progresses from now on, you can listen to this again and remember that you were there at a truly exiciting and promising time. You were there when ASIWYFA led the assault.

9.5/10