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Sometimes entirely instrumental, at others offering
vocals that are barely discernible amid the
multi-layered post rock noise or minimal dark
electronica, it's hard to decide whether Vessels are
an odd prog/industrial hybrid whose time should be
long past, or the genuinely new sound of the
twenty-first century.
There is more than a touch of iLiKETRAiNS
about them. Hailing from Leeds, they clearly belong to
a scene that has also given us bands such as
Laymar, which is no bad thing. Their sound has
the harsh edge of the industrial landscape about it,
but also of wide open wilderness - the rusting factory
at the edge of Sigur Rós's virginal white snow.
With more than 100 live shows behind them,
including the Leeds Festival, there's a definite sense
that this is music designed and intended to be played
live and very loud (at times - at others, such as the
fragile Look At That Cloud!, your damaged ear drums
will need to strain to hear them), a sonic assault
that should leave you physically aware of its presence
in the way pioneered by Godspeed You! Black
Emperor, A Silver Mount Zion and their many
spin-offs.
The flipside is that on gentler tracks such as the
superbly titled An Idle Brain And The Devil's
Workshop, they show that they're just as ready to lick
the wounds they've just inflicted.
Much of this is no doubt due to the production
efforts of John Congleton, a man also responsible for
the aural assault that is Explosions In The
Sky, while the snow-covered Minnesota setting in
which they recorded the album may well be responsible
for its sense of space. Because White Fields And Open
Devices lives up to its name: a musical experience
that has plenty of room to breathe, freeing the band
from the physical constraints and claustrophobia of
their native industrial British north.
From the haunting vocals of Walking Through Walls
to the railroad nightmares of Trois Heures (exactly
the time of day when sounds like this invade attempts
to sleep that are most needed and most doomed to
failure), Vessels have many more dimensions than you
might notice on first listen, sometimes overlaying
their sonic soundscapes with delicate, almost folkish
guitars that half smile, half sneer as they never
actually lead you down the prog-noddling path they
threaten to.
The music they weave always, without fail, stays
just the right side of pretentious, playing with past
conventions and current trends, showing how clever
they are without showing off. Too melodic to be dark
ambient, too apologetic to be truly post-industrial,
it may not be radio friendly, but that doesn't make it
perfect music for lonely nights, long drives on empty
roads, and something to put on in the dead of winter
to drown out the sounds of the broken boiler. Long may
the muffled explosions continue.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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