There are some releases which are never growing old on the ear – Glassing’s last full-length Spotted Horse was exactly such a release and thus the sheer joy is immeasurable when listening to their new full-length which delivers more than expected because it is exactly what one wanted – and more. Much more.
To be clear, one will not get a completely new band, a totally new sound or the re-invention of music – one should not ask that from the Texan trio, based in Austin. Why not? Because their music has always been exactly that – a re-definition of what “hard” or “heavy” music can be. It can be brutal, yes. Listen to the end of the title track on this, their third, full-length, because some of the drum collapses into math-core without the usual chaos but accompanied by death metal-like growls, that’s heavy.
Can heavy music be evocative of something more fragile, more intimate? It sure can – just get a good notion of the instrumental ”Godless Night” which is the perfect star-gazing soundtrack out in the prairie and it feels like the stars are vibrating right in front of our eyes which the long-drawn guitar part slowly gaining a tiny bit of momentum while the drums take time before they ever start coming to the foreground where they shuffle along and then challenge the guitars out of their laid-back comfort zone until the hit on the tombs become more earthy, harder and more dominant – as if one of the stars is coming closer and closer to us until it stops less than a yard away from us.
Should heavy music completely kick you out of any expectations? It depends, but if a track opens with such perfect hardcore screaming like ”Doppler” right after the end of the preceding instrumental then the kick is even harder, because that was definitely not what the listener expected. We are thrown around by some mathy hardcore and then taken some steps further along with even more math-core and chaos by the next track ”Among The Stars” and just when one thinks to have got the gist of the band, they push it into post-metal stomper mode and one is once again left behind baffled.
One might have hoped for a wonderfully elegant, sparkly prancing track like ”Where Everything Is Still” but after those two uptempo-tracks I would not have bet on receiving such a wonderful elegy at the beginning of the last third of the record. This is not only supplying us with room to breather but also to dream. And it shows how clever this record is arranged, how well each song follows onto the one before. Glassing knows how to shake you and how to console you. Every song has the perfect sound, sometimes a tiny bit more rumbly, more lo-fi (like ”True North”) sometimes shiny and clear (like “Where Everything Is Still”).
To put it in a nutshell - Twin Dream is Glassing. And Glassing is neither more nor less than Twin Dream: A band that can kick and riff you to shreds with their version of modern, slightly blackened and mathy post-hardcore. Or a band that can caress your ears with elegance and surreal post-rock. Let’s just keep on listening to this record and then throw any expectations over board for record four and let’s just say: This is Glassing.
