This immersive album with stirring counterpoints reeling from velvet Post-Rock sonics to harsh and intricate Post-Metal atmosphere is every bit as delicate as it is harsh. Believe it or not, it is the first full-length by the Scots.
Yes, it is an impressive mature album amalgamating styles into a mesmerizing album with layered textures and delicate introspective instrumental passages, swelling dense crescendos and powerful guttural growls. Throughout the album Post-Metal embraces subtle Post-Rock, lifting it and carrying it on its sturdy back. The song ”Cyclical Dunt” is a vivid example of the way the band orchestrates their music. The flow is relaxed, emanating a distinct Post-Rock vibe with subtle glissading guitars. There is a faint surge in the musical flow as it grows burly with strong, growling vocals elevated by the music. The music begins to swell, pushed by deep bass and heaved by high-pitched guitars. The sonics manage to be both heavy and light-toned while giving off a fine-drawn melody.
Although Post-Rock and Post-Metal are the most distinct vibes on the album, it is truly a melting pot of styles. There is a hint of Darkwave, gliding, and dreamy clear vocals that might adorn some parts with a hint of 80s Dream Pop (!), and the opening chords of the song ”Vanguard” with mighty organ tunes are reminiscent of the grandiose organ-based heavy tunes mighty 70s bands.
”Vanguard” mixes clean and guttural growling vocals. After the grand opening, the music pans out into the atmosphere of modern Post-Rock with clear melodic guitar, tranquil vocalizing, slow-paced drums, and low-end bass. Far away the growls linger in the sonics melting with the musical flow with rich melodious riffs. The music simmers down just to surge back and repeat the mighty organ-based opening with both clean parts and growls elevating the song. The music dives into heavier sludgy parts led by the harsh vocals before it opens up and spreads out its Post-Rock atmosphere slowly sliding forward with glissading fuzzy guitar and melodic clear vocalizing countering the ever so slowly guttural growls. A prolonged echoing atmospheric part emerges with vast soundscapes and slight whispering drumsticks fluttering through the drumset as the glistening clear guitars hover around it with echo effects and slowly fade away.
One of the trademarks of Post-Rock is that the song titles often are long, imaginative, and allegoric. The title of the first song, ”The Sky Above The Port Was The Colour Of Television, Tuned To A Dead Channel” might look like a title Red Sparowes could have come up with. But it is a quote from the Cyberpunk novel Necromancer by William Gibson (note by the editor - the book was later on turned into the movie Johnny Mnemonic with John Wick, uhm Keanu Reeves). Adding to that, the band´s name is the same as a point-and-click computer game from the mid-90s, a game immersed in Cyberpunk. And if you look at the band´s graphic designs for each single released on YouTube there is a distinct overall nod to Cyberpunk as a genre.
And with this in mind, thinking cinematic, the first song could very well be used as an audible link to Cyberpunk films and literature. Here, a synth glides among strumming strings, symbolizing a vast cinematic soundscape as a distant heavy drum set emerges at a slow pace before it surges into a mighty soundscape with a synth in choir mode and prolonged riffs forming a melodic theme. Far away, mighty guttural growls insert themselves into the sonics. The music pans out with a glissading guitar, echoing with sound effects. In the mix there is a whiff of the Synthwave that characterizes the music often associated with Cyberpunk.
Most of the songs open with a clean guitar in different modes and the songs are developed into intricate structures. They are long and allow the band to take them into unexpected realms of atmospheric music. Such a song is ”Quetzalcoatlus”, where a clean guitar on the lower strings opens the song. A melodic ascending theme is created by other guitars, synth bass, and clean soaring vocals with drums leading at an idling pace. The bass leads the melody from beneath, forming a soft velvety surface for the music to move smoothly aloft with the guitars’ prolonged, slightly distorted riffs. It calms with a clean-pitched guitar surrounded by a synth. A faster, clean guitar begins to pick up speed, strumming fast, and the rest of the instruments follow, led by the higher-pitched guitars steadily swelling before merging with denser Post-Metal music and powerful growls, still with the pitched guitar in the mix. It is as harsh as it is delicate, flowing forward with a pitched guitar fighting for attention in the “denseness” until the sonics pan out with a strumming clear guitar.
”The Infinite Silence That Follows The Absolute Truth” is an imaginary title for a visionary song. Buried in this song is also a hint of Darkwave with vast soundscapes overtaken by Post-Metal riffs and growls with deep heaviness, but with a swaying glittering guitar above the powerful Post-Metal sounds, as if trying to break free.
Winds sweep through strumming and shivering guitars in the closing song, ”The Becoming”. The guitars begin to spread out below clean vocals resting upon soft bass grooves. The music surges with translucent riffs, embracing the shivering guitar while a lingering melody lays in the middle of the sonics. The vocals float like a distant memory of 80s Dream Pop although the musical scope is far from that, as it is lifted toward a soothing Post-Rock atmosphere and surging into heaviness. The music is layered and surging until it calms down repeating the opening of the song, but with more layers before a crescendo lifts the music towards an energetic part with immersed powerful growls as the music spreads and leans further into the crescendo with distorted guitar, steady drumming, low-end bass, and a high pitched guitar before an abrupt halt when the song and album end with a harmonious choir.
This is the first month of the year, and already Beneath A Steal Sky has released an AOTY top-list contender through Ripcord Records. Looking back on 2024, this Scottish label has an impressive eclectic rooster. If this album is a signal of what is to be released this year by Ripcord, we have a lot to look forward to.
