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Post Rock Post – Orellana

Welcome folks, to the first Post Rock Post of 2018! At the new year’s birth, there’s a distinct feeling of hope and expectancy of the future. Many people

6 years ago

Welcome folks, to the first Post Rock Post of 2018! At the new year’s birth, there’s a distinct feeling of hope and expectancy of the future. Many people would ridicule this feeling and while I understand that urge, I would rather embrace it. There’s so much suffering in this world; it’s best to hang on to the beautiful parts of our lives. And so, in the spirit of increasing and bolstering the unique feeling that comes with a start of a new year, I bring you Orellana. This post rock project from Bristol lives on the cinematic scale of post rock, complete with moving crescendos and tantalizing build ups. However, it’s true power is its piano, calling to mind acts like Rumour Cubes or This Patch of Sky. I invite you below to listen for the first time.

Man, that piano is just what I needed. The overall structure of “Beautiful Youth” should be familiar to you, as will indeed the entirety of 52, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying it. There’s a neo-classical flair to the whole thing which really sets it above the crop, an attention to the composition of the different parts and their interaction which makes the music more than the sum of its parts. It’s certainly not an album which will shock you with its ideas but it will lift your heart and, sometimes, that’s all we require of post rock. The way the different movements of the track (and album) are built makes sure there is enough interest to keep you going for more than a few listens, pleasingly aesthetic in the ways in which they inform and foreshadow one another.

Bottom line, 52 is a post rock fan’s post rock album. Its structure and mode of delivery are very much of the genre but something about the way its executed lends it a fair deal of strength. Other places on the album, like the dynamic “Still Waters Run Deep” or the somber “Stay” explore emotions and musical ideas surrounding the core post rock offering, by channeling different rhythms and volume levels into the basic structure of the tracks. I recommend finding some place windy, cold, and sunlit wherein you can watch the world unfold with this album playing. You won’t regret it.

Eden Kupermintz

Published 6 years ago