Post-Rock at its best, with emotional and sweeping atmospheric soundscapes.
Civil Service established themselves as a force to reckon with in the Post-Rock genre already with last year´s full-length /// Light - not only as newcomers on the UK scene, but also on the international Post-Rock scene. Here is the “difficult” second full-length. Could they surpass their first effort? In my view, they have, but the two releases complete each other. The band had a creative vision of first musically exploring the brighter sides of human existence, and then the second, the darker sides. It is fittingly released this year as it feels like the world is on a slippery slope into darker times. The albums´ covers illustrate this duality.
On the band’s first single, Wallenberg, they showed that their music has more content than merely brilliant Post-Rock music. With their music, they convey a kind of message, leaving the listener in a meditative, reflective, and emotional mode. That also shows again on this album´s second track, ”Black Giraffes” that opens with a disturbing red alert and a firm, commanding voice telling you what to do in the time of emergency. The guitar-based translucent music surrounds the voice with different melodies, sometimes light and easy, sometimes heavy and distorted. Then the voice is drowned out by cascading and very melodic distorted music, before the voice returns as the guitars spread out. The music tenses again and pans out once more to give room for sampled Ukrainian voices talking, accompanied by low-end bass. This is an emotional moment on the album, and you can watch and read the moving transcription of the Ukrainians words on the complementary video (watch here). When they released the track as a single, all money raised from it was and will be donated to Ukrainian humanitarian aid workers.
Except for the first and the last track, each track clocks in around six to seven minutes. That allows the musicians to orchestrate and develop the music into extraordinary soundscapes. The layered music soars, sweeps, cascades and builds yearning crescendos. The guitars use the full range from both translucent and dense guitar riffs to high-pitched soaring and spiraling, and also delicate strumming and sound effects. The rhythm section is driving forces and laying groovey foundations for the guitars to swirl above. The band also uses synths for effects, sometimes dipping into Darkwave. There is even a delicate and gentle piano taking the lead on ”The Heurist”.
This is music to delve into and immerse yourself in and be carried away with as the album opens with widespread guitars immersing a voice talking about the darkness of the depths of the ocean. ”An Infant Wave On A Savage Ocean” continues with a harder guitar as the drums give the marching order and the melodies soar in the stamping hard music. Thunderous drumming makes the music intense as the words from the opening are repeated, but now in a more desperate and breathless mode as the music intensifies with a crystal clear guitar and some fuzzy distorted guitars with the additional rumbling bass.
The shortest track on the album, ”These Cities Are Ruin” opens with alarming sound and dips into electronic sounds bordering on Darkwave with beats that give it a distinct urban timbre. It is hurried and intense, and a higher-pitched guitar begins to swirl. The music serves as a bridge from the sea-themed first, Ukrainian-themed second, and over to the fourth track, ”URBNDCY” that opens with upbeat sounds and one crystalline guitar, fast drumming, and soaring guitars forming the track´s musical theme. The track becomes an utterly engaging piece of classic Post-Rock with diversions into wide open musical segments, tightening with surges and a constant flow of ever-changing musical themes in the guitar-based layers until a cascading crescendo is charging forward.
As the delicate piano tones drip on the track ”The Heurist”, soft and delicate bass and drums widen the sonic scope, making this a meditative, slow-paced piece of repetitive melodic music where the piano has a central place before a placid, darker sound seeps through the music. It is rising and falling in a slow tempo. A guitar with a certain banjo timbre emerges among the ever-expanding layered sonics. The flowing, comfortable sounds are overtaken by heavy, slow riffing, immense distorted guitar sounds, but in the midst of the cascading riffs a yearning high-pitched sound can be heard, like a foreboding alarm: The music changes direction with electronic beats and synths amid the distorted soundscape. It is intense and like a flow of bit-based data flowing around each other, trying to follow the pattern laid out by the beats until it melts into a distorted end of the track.
On ”Every Beam Of Light Is An Invitation To Death” there are also gentle piano sounds, but here it is paired with soft bass sonics. After a rise in the musical flow, it simmers down until the piano takes a more dominant role, playing an elegant melody. Further out in the track, the sonics have a sense of discordant flow before a pause. Then there is an immense cascade of heavy, distorted guitars building a crescendo-like end of the song with higher-pitched guitars in the immense repetitive and ever-surging sonics. On ”Distraction Tactics”, there is a sense of fuzz in the timbre upon a soft, laid-out foundation by the bass and slow-paced drums which becomes very versatile while the music ebbs away. A yearning guitar breaks out and another follows, discharging an engaging crescendo with an abundance of melodic themes.
The last song, ” Turn Out The /// Light”, shows how creative and inventive the band is as it serves as a framework narrative for the album. The spoken words from the first song are repeated here, but sung first by hoarse and belching male vocals, then by strong female vocals, and then toward the end both sing in harmony. The music is all over the heavy Post-Rock sonics, but at times also swelling and delicate. The guitar-based melodic music flows and surges with soft bass and drums. The music is surging into a sweeping crescendo until the music disappears, and only the vocals are left, and the sounds fade away to end a magnificent musical journey.
