THE FALLENT HOST

Second full-length album by the post-rock assemble Blueneck!

And this album clearly follows the path of the previous album, with the typical intense crescendos (Low, Lilitu?), tortured piano melodies, mellow and sad vocals and slightly distorted guitars which become fierce and much more intense in the named crescendos.

Sadly, I also find that the band did not know how to evolve enough for this second work, because it sounds almost identical as in their debut, being almost indistinguishable sometimes. Moreover, the compositions in The Fallen Host are also not so inspired and lack the impact that the ones in Scars of the Midwest had.

Best Tracks: Low (beautiful crescendo at the end), Weaving Spiders Come Not Here (great title for a song and beautiful melodies) and Lilitu (the most powerful song of the album, with tons of distortion towards the end)

Conclusion: if you don't know this band, I recommend you start with their debut album Scars of the Midwest, because The Fallen Host is almost identical but with a bit less quality and originality.

But please don't take me wrong... The Fallen Host is a good post-rock album, truly melancholic and with beautiful playing and singing. It just lacks a bit of magic!

My rating: ***

Post-rock figures from Bristol generally differ from other formations of their genre by some distance from the trends of modern post-rock which is so unlike the masterpieces of the 90s and which locked itself in monotonous tremolo and other dreamy aspects of the notorious "atmosphere". None of this Blueneck will give you, and will offer in return something else.

The gigantic slowness characteristic of The Fallen Host requires a focused attention from the listener, who may not be imbued with the first, second, tenth time of auditions, but 100% imbued with the conditional 11th time and will sink head in these melodies, in these piercing crescendos. That's why I go back to The Fallen Host every time. This is where the main epics in the group's discography are concentrated, and if Low is a little bit out of his bleakness, then Lilitu and Revelations definitely fall under the category of the most majestic and monumental post-rock anthems of our time.

Taking all the best from the classic postmen from Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the use of symphonic instruments as well as from the rigorous atmospheric and non-banal alternatives, namely Anathema and Radiohead, Blueneck paint contemplative landscapes and make the strictest emphasis on them, inviting the listener to focus on extracting and getting the maximum pleasure or overcoming catharsis, and in several compositions at once. As for me, the most accessible song for acquaintance with The Fallen Host is the instrumental Seven. Concisely, by the standards of the album briefly, but how emotionally and magically! No, I don't believe that this album exists, maybe I just dreamed of it... Dreamed of it several times to cleanse my dark soul, to pull out all the Revelations through the final song and the hysterical violin accompanying this fiery crescendo. That's what I wish you, comrades.