Review : RED SPAROWES – “The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer”

Post-rock bands love long titles, don’t they? Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (Godspeed You! Black Emperor), Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (Explosions in the Sky), The Fire in our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw (Pelican). Red Sparrowes, more than any other band I can think of, really likes to do this. Hell, a song on their last album was “And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole.” Now, you won’t find any of that here, as they’ve significantly trimmed it down, but the album title is still pretty lengthy.

We all know that, just as you should not judge a book by its cover, you should not judge a band by its titles. However, I do find it interesting that with their new slimmed-down song titles, they have also managed to slim down song lengths. Personally, I prefer music like this to take lots of time to seep in, which is usually aided by extending songs to the 10-minute mark and beyond, but the band managed to actually craft something that really stays with you here. Sure, it’s not as creative as bands like Irepress, Rosetta, or Sigur Rós, but it works.

Everything you might expect from a post-rock album is here. Soaring guitars, beautiful melodies, and a crystal-clean production. Occasionally, they’ll throw in some metal elements, with “A Swarm” featuring the heaviest moments, reminding me quite a bit of some classic Pink Floyd but with significantly more distortion and just a different vibe in general. The midsection of “As Each End Looms and Subsides” provides some pretty metallic moments as well. These are the times where I, personally, think the band most succeeds. They can do the shining, uplifting Explosions in the Sky-esque fragments pretty well, but I feel like when they bring in the big guns, it works to their advantage.

If you’re looking to escape the stresses of life, this is a good place to start. The harmonies are always consonant, the guitars always sound pleasing, and the songwriting is fluid and consistent. The only thing that really bumps this down from a 4.5 to a 4 for me is the lack of creativity. They don’t go out of their way to make their own unique sound. When you get down it, though, that really doesn’t matter.