PURE REASON REVOLUTION - ABOVE CIRRUS
Impressive album from trio featuring perhaps the finest guest drumming performance in living memory.
Above Cirrus is the second album this British trio have released since a decade long hiatus in the 2010’s, their fifth album overall, and it finds them in rather rude health.
Cirrus is the light, feathery, cloud that you see high in the sky on a lazy, hazy, summer’s day, and I detect a distinct theme running through this album of the impact of climate change on our society and the planet.
What we have here is a work which has at its heart a post-rock core but is infused with so much more. It is, in turns, heavy, crushing, melodic and always deeply engaging. The trio are Jon Courtney on vocals, keyboards, and guitars, Chloë Alper on vocals, bass and keyboards, and guitarist Greg Jong marking his first appearance with the band since 2005. The drums on the album are performed (exceptionally) by Geoff Dugmore, who Steve Hogarth fans might remember as the drummer with his pre-Marillion outfit, The Europeans.
Opener, Our Prism, might just be the best example of the use of such an object since a certain DSOTM cover. The opening computerised voice speaks of being trapped inside our prism with no light, and this intro gives way to a deliciously heavy drum sequence underlaying a menacing guitar and bass before the track expands into life in an aggressive manner, guitars right at the fore.
This is the shortest track on the album at just over three and a half minutes. New Kind Of Evil follows, the second longest track at eight and a half minutes, and the pace and mood slows down considerably. What strikes me about the opening sequence of this are the wonderful vocal harmonies on offer, and these become a repeated treat throughout, which belie the undercurrent of war referred to in the lyrics. There are some haunting guitars here, delicately distorted to provide for a kind of dystopian imagining. I do rather love the bassline Alper produces in the second half of the track, and Dugmore accompanies this perfectly – I wonder are there any plans to include him as a full-time member of the band, given that he also played on 2020’s Eupnea? Anyhow, the closing minute and a half are more expansive and create a huge wall of noise. This is a cracking track, and you know you are in the company of something very special, and certainly very talented. The track is about as catchy as it is possible for post-rock music to get.
Phantoms follows and is another shorter effort at just under four minutes long, and, again, what I really like about this is the stark mood change from what preceded it. The underlying synth chords are dark, but the vocals above these are, again, harmonious, and sunny in their effect. The rhythm section which underpins all of this is rock solid. This track is a piece of electronica meets hard rock and should, in a reasonable world, be a hit single. The artificial voice returns at the close talking about a Ferris wheel moving too fast, UV light coming through (which I believe ties in with the stunning album cover picture of the melting polar bear) and a man asks what will you do in the future, and this segues directly into Cruel Deliverance which has an almost dreamy quality to it at the start with some fragile vocals, male & female, above the bass and drum core. Just short of three minutes in, the track becomes Gothic in its feel and delivery. The organ is a darker pastiche of those you hear in a church, there are some almost Beach Boys like vocal harmonies with another interesting drum pattern before the whole thing explodes into another crescendo of noise with more chaotically distorted guitars accompanying the returning cruel deliverance vocal. This is my personal favourite on an impressive work. The robot returns at the end with talk of rats and foreign relics, and all this ties in with the overwhelming theme of this album I interpret as that of human ruination of the beauty that is all around us.
The voice leads us into Scream Sideways, the ten minute “epic” on the album. The beginning of this track is extremely subdued with a delicate voice accompanying piano and synth before a chord which could have featured on Welcome To The Machine introduces the beginning of the main segment of the piece, which features a very impressive light guitar riff over the pulsating rhythm section alongside some interesting, and disturbing, synth effects before the darker menacing distorted guitar is again featured in the “scream” segment of the music. We don’t get any vocals until just short of four minutes in and they give us a quieter more introspective feel before the dystopia of rather disturbing riffs and effects return with a vengeance. Then, we get something completely different, a delicious Floydian bluesy passage with some soaring voices and vocals leading the way into subdued and rather introspective waves of stark minimalist beauty which belies the explosion of noise you get a minute out from the close with the return of crashing riffs, bass, and drums. This track is just about as eclectic you will hear in 2022 and is extremely effective. Yes, it wears some of its influences on its sleeves, most clearly from a certain Mr Wright, but it is none the poorer for that.
The penultimate track is the grandly titled Dead Butterfly, which has a lovely piano accompanied by more delicious vocal harmonies which, as can be gathered, is one of the hallmarks of this album. This lasts a minute before the heavy riffs reassert themselves. However, the mood of much of this track is somewhat wistful. There is a longing in the riffs and the techno effects. Our robot friend returns at the end to talk about a poet living amongst the filth and a plague of flies, and invites us to look way above the cirrus, so taking us to the core album title.
Lucid closes proceedings. The piano and gentle mood of the preceding track close is extended here in between some interesting guitar riffs which are above yet another stunning drum pattern underneath, this especially apparent during the mid-section of the song. Following this, we return to some more distinctly heavy riffs and then more dystopian noises before the close brings us a very interesting and quite lovely vocal passage.
This is an impressive album in its scope and reach. It is clearly inspired by Covid and, I believe, concern regarding the climate crisis. It is extremely well produced, and whilst not a “happy” album, it is most certainly not a depressing one. It is available from Inside Out and comes very much recommended.