AEREOGRAMME - Sleep And Release

What a pleasant surprise, Aereogramme. Having burst onto the music scene's radar with "A Story In White" in 2001, they live up to the hype with this "Sleep And Release". It's hard to pigeonhole the Scots' music, given the many influences - at times seemingly contrasting - that can be found across the album's ten tracks. The sonic matrix is certainly the dominant one; it's easy to spot the walls of sound reminiscent of Sonic Youth, acidic riffs worthy of Pixies, but also a melodramatic quality and a cleanliness of sound with a whiff of Seventies progressive rock. Nineties rock couldn't be left out either, with Smashing Pumpkins cropping up here and there mainly, but everything is filtered through a post-punk sensibility that steers clear of hard-rock elements and keeps the overall sound from collapsing into a pale grunge imitation. The voice of Craig B (ex-Ganger) - delicate, fragile, always on the verge of cracking, somewhere between Matthew Bellamy (Muse) and Som Wardner (My Vitriol) - can also turn psychotic when his bandmates' metallic slashes demand it, while the frequent use of strings and the presence of electronic particles in several tracks make the sound even more evocative, besides showcasing the band's stylistic signature.

The opening track "Indiscretion #243" is a riff-spewing machine, with a menacing bassline well to the fore; the song, melodic just the right amount, shows what Weezer could have been if they'd decided to write serious music. "Black Path" is Aereogramme's own "Tonight Tonight", majestically orchestral, complete with romantic vocals. The almost methodical alternation between soft and driving tracks is the album's strong suit, keeping it from being too metallic or too saccharine, so that it never grows tiresome after repeated listens. There's more calm in "A Simple Process Of Elimination", an original electro-ambient composition complete with strings and dreamy vocals, not too far removed from the northern lights evoked by Sigur Rós.

"No Really Everything's Fine", on the other hand, is overflowing, with a wall of sound built on devastating guitar layers passed through the distorting lenses of Sonic Youth. "Older" and "Wood" mirror Tool-style prog-metal, with shifts in rhythm and mood, alternately calm, then shaken by metallic slashes and by Craig B's hoarse, obsessive hardcore vocals.

If the wildest side of Pixies is paid tribute in the melodic assault of "Yes", the album closes with a couple of compositions of absolute value: the splendid "In Gratitude", a romantic ballad sung with understated restraint, Craig B's voice cradled by strings and accompanied by drums that resound in the distance, never intrusive. The untitled tenth track instead attempts to recreate the emotional crescendos of Mogwai, demonstrating first of all how Aereogramme's sound branches out in a thousand directions, and secondly just how many ideas the song format almost seems to hold back.

In conclusion, the names invoked here are many, and certainly significant, but their lessons are blended into a sonic mix that's at times uneven, yet highly personal throughout. Aereogramme prove that in 2003 it still makes sense to play "energetic" rock with guitar, bass and drums, without necessarily having to jump on the garage-blues-rock'n'roll revival bandwagon currently in vogue.

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25/10/2006