Goodbye Meteor is one of these bands that should be huge among genre-fans. Whoever loves well-made Post-Rock will probably already have fallen in love with the band from the north of France, close to the Belgian border, thus also close to the Europesan epicenter of Post-Rock called dunk!Records. The wonderful people there also released We Could Have Been Radiant and even though the first press is sold out, I still want to try and convince more people into listening to this record. Why? Because it shines.
Yes, it shines. On many levels, some more abstract, others pretty clear. Not only that the album title carries a certain relation to light, brightness and sparkle, no the record also carries something similar as many of the guitar lines. The little bit of echo used on many of the guitar arpeggios and licks provide a certain kind of radiation of sound like the shine that the halo provides on the famous Russian icons. The edges of the portraits seem to blur a bit, as if there is a tiny 3D-effect to it. And these little details are important for Goodbye Meteor as well – there are many different layers of guitars used on most of the songs and on these have that certain hall which is the closest sound can get to that 3D-effect.
Additionally, the songs themselves take time, like the waves of radiation from the sun that keep our planet inhabitable. The songs slowly build, growing with each layer of sound, with each more part added and then we come to the peak where we have these seismic eruptions and even though they are not unforeseeable their power is really striking. For one might not have imagined such powerful chords after the delicate build-ups.
When the other instruments then also emburse the tracks with wonderful little details like a hollow bassline here, or a jazzy spin on the drums with a soft drum brush – it becomes more and more obvious that this band with this debut record will create a lot of noise for themselves and much light will be shed on them. Righteously so. Yes, this is a record for fans of the genre, specifically bands like ef, sleepmakeswaves or Caspian. Or if you like your Post-Rock with some of the particularly good French bands like When Waves Collide, Where Mermaids Drown or Silent Whale Becomes A Dream – then this band surely will find many spins on your turntable (or streams on your app, however you listen to music). There is this dream-like quality to the songs and structures, this certain glimmer that makes for a really immersive quality which provide for a deep listening experience. One can forget everything else, all the negative things we encounter everywhere every day and in that sense, the record provides hope, which is basically nothing else than the shining silver lining on the horizon. Thus – another version of light.
Told you, this record shines. And maybe you let it shine for you too. No matter if you are Post-Rock aficionado or a lover of good music in general.
