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Take copious amounts of shoegazey guitar noise and slow it way
down and thicken it up a bit with too much distortion and churn
it around and you'll come up with something akin to Arctic
Sleep. Drawing from the noise-ethos of bands like Hum
and mixing in a bit of the otherworldly edginess of early Swans'
records, this two-piece from Chicago makes music that is more
of a feeling than a melody. At correct volumes (which would be
really, really LOUD) Mare Vaporum is a semi-short collection
of wall of noise slowness that throws back to the glory of early
post-rock beauty like Codeine. The songs are thick with
guitar and slow… ever too slow... drumming that hides within
themselves some totally unintelligible lyrics. The few lyrics
that slip through the haze of guitar are a bit too literate for
their own good… much like reading a Susan Frances
record review. The words are clever and more erudite than most
folks would allow, but they just don't mean anything to me without
the proper context.
I suppose there is nothing to not like about Arctic Sleep. The
music is heavy and slow, grinding its way through a murky field
of psychodelics without really making any progress. Mostly, this
music is for playing loud. Really fucking loud. These songs -
or pieces, as I am more willing to call them - draw from the slow-core
reality of bands like Low, but substitute raw power for
the beauty that is such a huge part of those other bands. It is
nice to hear some 50 bpm drumming again, though. I miss Codeine
so much.
-Embo Blake
Track Listing:
1. Over The Antifreeze Rainbow
2. We've Got A Bleeder
3. Arden's Countryside
4. Startropins
5. Splitsville
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Arctic
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