ArcTanGent is coming up soon and I couldn’t be more exciting to attend. Beyond the incredible line-up this year, I’ve heard so much about the festival’s atmosphere and unique air of artistic expression and I can’t wait to sample it for myself. The new EP from Only Echoes Remain (which we’ve mentioned previously on the blog, when we covered one of A Thousand Arms’ excellent compilations) is a testament to that. It was recorded live at the festival and is now being released as the band’s follow up to the excellent The Exigent from 2017. The EP includes one previously released track (“Aurora”) and three new tracks, all of which benefit from the energy of a live performance. Head on down below to stream the full thing!
As I mentioned above, the live recording quality of this EP really shines through. Whether on the roiling bass of “Aurora”, perfectly setting off the evocative guitar lines which usher in the track’s groovy outro, or on the more trippy atmospherics of the following “Monolith”, the sound on this EP is pristine in its organic nature, made greater than them sum of its parts by stepping outside of the studio for its timbre. The composition on the new tracks also compliments this more chaotic vibe; they are less predictable and veer away from the post-rock formula than the band’s previous works, dipping more heavily into post-metal. Just check out the aforementioned “Monolith” after its half point mark, as it dips again and again into heavy riffs, off kilter guitar leads, and an overall air of a collapse spiraling out of control only to be picked up again by “I Am Ozymandias” and its tight, suffocating intro.
These new sounds appear to be no mistake; the band have chosen this live format to introduce their fans to a new direction for the band, incorporating all of these elements into this first, exploratory release of where they’d like to go as a band. As they themselves say:
This release is a big statement for us since we think we’ve evolved quite a lot musically/compositionally since writing The Exigent over 2016/17. If that release was more post-rock with some prog tinges to keep it from being too cliched, our new material is significantly more progressive, with much more elements of post-metal and math-rock, while still retaining those signature OER moments of reflection and euphoria.
This new type of blend really works for the band, injecting their music with a sense of urgency and growth for which it would make sense to venture out of the sometime constricting parameters of post-rock. Antique Lands releases this Friday, the 24th of May. If you’re interesting not only in post-rock but what can be done when experimenting with the boundaries of the genre, you can and should head on over to the band’s Bandcamp page above to pre-order it.