THISQUIETARMY - Hex Mountains

After an outright prolific 2012, packed with no fewer than three collaborative albums (with Yellow6, Aidan Baker and Year Of No Light, in chronological order) and a solo effort, the heavily esoteric-tinged "Exorcisms", 2013 also brings the inevitable dispatch signed Eric Quach. Tireless and perpetually in search of new paths, the multi-instrumentalist once again puts his name on the Denovali catalogue, migrating this time toward yet another, unprecedented sonic direction; and he does so in the very year his fellow Canadian Tim Hecker used the masterpiece "Virgins" to push Canada's name firmly to the forefront of experimental electronic music.

"Hex Mountains" is therefore a work that partly breaks with the spiritual charge of its predecessor, drawing instead closer to a series of universes Quach had already touched on before but never fully explored: the drone-metal of Jesu, dark ambient with an industrial aftertaste, and that post-rock lineage that runs from Isis to the darkness of a number of recent outfits (staying within the Denovali roster, think of Iroha and Terminal Sound System).

Electric guitars, drums and digital treatments are thus the undisputed protagonists of a rough, abrasive album, decidedly far removed from the cosmically-derived atmospheres that had made the Thisquietarmy name known.

Yet after the first few minutes of "From Darkness", anyone would have bet without hesitation on a definitive shift toward a possessed, fervent strain of ambient music: but soon enough thunder and lightning begin to break loose from the cloudy ambient carpet, building a wall that, by the end, comes close to brushing post-sludge territory. The "calm" after the storm shows itself in the industrial atmospheres of the distortions on "Wraithslayers", which could easily be credited to the rawest, most visceral Aidan Baker.

With the unstable "Digital Witchcraft", on the other hand, a foggy, damp night falls, left to the drift of gentle hiss and the lonely, isolated embroidery of the guitar, before the moon manages, toward the end, to let a few rays filter through in the form of flowing drones. The second storm, however, is already set to unleash itself in a more ecstatic, less dramatic "Spirits In Oblivion", with walls of guitars once again taking centre stage, not far removed from the most expansive Pelican.

It's probably still too early to say how much this half-turn (temporary, you can bet on it) will benefit the sound of a project that, across its sheer volume of releases and collaborations, has always made stylistic polychromy a creed. "Hex Mountains" is certainly not the creative peak of the Thisquietarmy name, but it's a solid record, not too demanding to approach for anyone who loves the murky, dark humus in which its four movements move.

What it certainly lacks is a certain dose of feeling, that element which in atmospheric music continues to represent, and will continue to represent, the first degree of separation between excellence and ordinariness — without, of course, wanting to ignore the many shades of grey that divide the two. A qualified confirmation for an act that will almost certainly not dwell long on these sounds, refusing to treat them as anything other than yet another waystation on a path deliberately and courageously devoid of a single destination.

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29/10/2013