By: “Chad
Rival Consoles | website | facebook | twitter | bandcamp | soundcloud |
Released on August 8, 2016 via Erased Tapes
A beautiful summer’s night, thick black and grey clouds in the sky. Delicate roars of thunder and pissing down rain. August is upon us once again. Rival Consoles seeps in through the heat rays to provide some sonic libations.
It’s interesting how much of a departure ‘Pattern of The North’ initially feels like; bright almost M83/Team Ghost-esque synths radiate blades of euphoria down onto the listener; there’s a sense of feverish heat; a tribal impetus compounded in drums. In many ways the track’s name feels like a misnomer; here we have a slightly ominous yet sweet, melodic track named after a direction typically associated with shitty, morose weather and aptly misanthropic people.
The opening of ‘Johannesberg’ is a texturally fascinating listen; rolling drums skittle-off in every direction; deep sub-bass croons beneath the surface. Tones twist and curl around the ears expelling acidic contortions of sound as the main melody flutters in; a plucked blips crackling and chirping like sparks dancing on the oily surface of a garage floor. Rival Consoles draws further and further in isolating the tone, examining the sparks before bursting the song apart with a series of bold pads and mountainous synths.
Further into the plucky tones, ‘Slow Song’ impresses from the off-set with its distinct introductory purr but its real charm is found in a beautiful metallic keyboard melody reminiscent of Blade Runner or perhaps 80s Bowie. The denser tribal conclusion as with the previous track evolves the track transitioning into Lone.
Paranoia comes to mind. Repeated monolithic strikes. Tension. Anxiety. Relief. Euphoric waves of synth bringing the album from the depths to sublimity like talking to a stranger and meeting a friend. Or vomiting in a grubby toilet then resuming your evening. Always in clear progression as though the album is chronicling an evening that starts at eleven and at this point lands the listener at around 2 AM.
It’s interesting when music conjures a sound so boldly atmospheric that it earns residence within your perception of that atmosphere; The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Darklands is arguably the greatest soundtrack to a gloomy, rainy day that any band has ever wrote but, it likely descends from them sounding like miserable, sodden northerners in the first place. That ability to capture a scene in the music; to almost give an album a setting and endow it with an extra dimension is both a limiter and an enhancer of the overall experience of the record. Rival Consoles since I first heard Howl has been a lucid aural manifestation of the wider hole in time around three in the morning and Night Melody continues that tradition well.
A dancey yet dingy conversation between the bass and synth; weary drums lightly adding colour to the pulse. Imagine seeing the city in almost an instant or supernovas exploding unfathomably far away, light and opulence; realisation and dissipation in harmony. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better artist to perfectly capture the early hours, there’s an intangible weight and darkness and tenacity that lies beneath the surface of it all that just exudes every association of the post-midnight void.
‘What Sorrow’ – watching on from a distance. Like glass between the rest of the world and the self. The sense of alienation is conjured in the track through an imposing sense of introspection; an oscillating sense of hope and despair permeates throughout the track like the internal battling of reason that finds comforting conclusions and unsettling possibilities. The track is almost abrasive in its immersion and perfectly serves as a cerebral odyssey as a result.
Another great release from Erased Tapes following last year’s stellar output and another great album by Rival Consoles, it’ll be interesting to see how the project evolves over time.
