The surges and swoshes, both musical and emotional, make Tethered Hands’ new release an immersive and captive hour-long musical journey.

The music that this transatlantic band has developed further from their successful previous album last year grows on you with every listen. On each track, there is so much to discover, so many cinematic themes to unravel, and an abundance of melodies surging together into bursting swells of elegance. It is impossible not to be moved by this riveting expansiveness and the creative efforts that lie at the bottom of making these soundscapes which are nothing but impressive. And when one knows that this is a band comprised of musicians on two continents, it is hard to believe it can be so tight and complete.

It is an instrumental album, but like Red Sparowes the track titles are miniature poems and give a clue to the emotion each track wants to evoke. Normally, a guitar is the main instrument in Post-Rock music, but here the piano is the centrepiece, together with synths. The other instruments build the music around the trickling, ever-changing, delicate, intricate piano chords. Together, the instruments fuse the musical motives together, building an emotive atmosphere of meditative cascading music when the crescendos set in. Immersed in the melodious flow is a sampled female voice that, when she talks, varies from indistinct to distinct.

We meet the voice on the first track, “I Will Show You the Infinite Universe”, that opens with cinematic sounds floating around the indistinct voice. When the piano emerges, it plays a fast melodic theme that intensifies as the sounds whirl. It is overtaken by a surge into distorted rhythmic guitar sonics, still with the fast piano playing the same melody, swirling in the guitar parts. Diverse drums play upon the pulsating groundwork laid by the bass. It widens out as both the bass and the guitar begin a melodious theme before fading away as the female voice says “Everything you ever known is a lie.”. The piano keeps repeating the same melodic theme, like it is running in circles around the other instruments, taking cues from them and exploring the melodies. The intricate way the track is composed makes for an intense and rousing listening experience.

And this captive way of composing and orchestrating the music continues throughout the album. “Embrace the Chaos” constructs massive walls that drift along, driven by the ever-present melodious piano that heaves and sinks in the widening heavy musical ambience driven forward by the drums until it spreads out with clean guitar and fast trickling piano chords. When the guitar begins to spiral again, the music soars onward to a crescendo over a foundation of low-end bass.

The cascading, often yearning, parts of the music are only effective because of the delicate and tender parts it contains. Sometimes these parts give the listener a pause to reflect on the previous soaring music. The track “We Fled from Sacred Realms” has this captivating element: After a tender piano has opened the track and ambient sounds have risen in the background, the music begins to grow with a fuzzy melodic tremolo guitar, followed by the piano, driven by the rhythm section. The piano begins to whirl along the distorted guitar, rising and lifting the musical realm as it gushes and bursts with emotive themes. The interplay between the guitar and the piano gives a new dimension and is lifted by the bass and drums. When it simmers down to another tender part, it comes like a relief of emotional tension, where one reflects on the strong passion that oozed from the track’s previous part. The clean guitar and ethereal piano are meditative and comfortable as the track slowly reaches the end and fades away.

The album´s closer is the 18 minute long “Hold Tight These Hands, Tethered by Toil, for Each Day Could Be Our Last”. The music is expansive as it develops and becomes an amalgamation of themes that melt together. It is a burst of emotions and very cinematic at the same time; opening with eerie dark ambient sounds that linger and spread out, getting dimmer and dimmer. It rotates slowly like an impenetrable fog before a bright, melodic sound rises from the darkness, accompanied by low-end bass and a strumming clear guitar. Gradually, a melodic theme is developed, and the piano appears to steer it pushed by a steady rhythm section. The different instruments are spread out with the keyboards as the centerpiece, forming musical meditative patterns. It is delicate and tender, yet with massive sounds embracing the listener. Ever so gently, the music begins to swell with a distant, fuzzy guitar and repetitive patterns from the piano, and faster drumming. The music flows with fuzzy guitars repeating patterns from the piano as it ever so gently begins to roar. It is tight, yet also translucent in its force as the guitar begins to play complex, distorted parts and the piano flies forward, soaring with delicate and wonderful themes and a fast rhythm section and piercing sounds by the synths. Towards the end, the music simmers down to ethereal sonics as it fades away into nothing before it reappears with the indistinct sampled female voice to end this massive album.