TUNNEL BLANKET

One of the best releases of 2011.

Tunnel Blanket is my first delve into This Will Destroy You and it definitely won't be my last, the epic GY!BE-esque atmosphere that these guys create is stunning and somehow falls into a whole new category of post-rock.

Guitar drones are one of the key components of this album's overall sound and they really make your ears sweat with epicness. Each track is well thought out and well produced winding up in a polished but still somewhat raw sound that helps maintain some of it that great intensity. Slow building tracks have always been a favorite of mine and This Will Destroy You really puts them to great use on this album. Sometimes you are almost soothed to sleep and sometimes you're being thrown into a concrete slab, the diversity is just mind bending.

A great album, highly recommended.

'This Will Destroy You' (TWDY) is a progressive rock band that plays heavy guitar instrumental post rock. 'Tunnel Blanket' is their 3rd full length album. They got started in the business by releasing what was supposed to be a demo tape, and it ended up getting such great response, that it actually became their first album 'Young Mountain', which is an excellent album.

'Tunnel Blanket' is a much darker album that has an overall theme of death. It is more centered around ambience and drone- like pieces. This album is the first to feature keyboardist Donovan Jones and drummer Alex Bhore.

It starts out with the longest track 'Little Smoke' which has a run time of over 12 minutes. The first 3 minutes are quite soft and quiet, exploring ambient textures, but it suddenly erupts into a very loud, doom metal style wall of sound with a very slow dirge-like beat. This extremely loud section continues until around the 10 minute mark where it finally goes to an atmospheric ending.

'Glass Realms' begins with a soft drone with some static noise. It continues on with a slowly changing chord pattern under- layed with an organ drone. This one is more of a shoegaze style with very little change except for a gradual change in intensity at around the 4:30 mark which crescendos slowly to the end.

'Communal Blood' was released as the first single of the album. This 8 minute track starts off ambient with a subdued drone based on two slowly changed chords and a quiet thumping sound creating tension. At 3 minutes, there is a sudden increase in sound and a crashing cymbal as a slow moving melody is established by the guitars. The music continues to grow as it continues. At 6:30, percussion stops and the music continues to float on until percussion starts again later.

'Reprise' was released as the b-side to the single, and is another 8 minute piece. This one features some nice textures in the beginning with a layered drone and subdued keyboard chord changes. The feeling is much more peaceful and at 3 minutes you start to hear some strings come in quietly and one of the drone layers gets processed into a start/stop pattern while other layers continue on around it. The quietness of this track makes you listen closer and as you do, you notice a lot of sounds and textures going on among the layers. Very nice.

'Killed the Lord, Left for the New World' starts with a pulsating drone and a guitar quickly starts a slow melody on the top of it. After 1 minute, a percussion pattern starts that is almost a mid-tempo tribal best. At 2 minutes, this beat stops and the music continues to float around quietly. Deep in the mix, you can hear indiscernible voices chanting and after awhile, the percussion starts again. Soon the music actually get a nice lushness to it, which is a welcome reprieve to the darkness of the previous track. Music increases and a more symphonic drone which sound almost like a mellotron is created by the keys.

'Osario' is a relatively short track that quickly builds to high pitched drones and a subdued percussive sound all cemented together with a keyboard drone. This is followed by 'Black Dunes' with a return to an ambient style. The music sounds like it is coming from far away as things stay soft until a sudden increase in noise at 3:30. Again you get the wall of noise creating a doom metal feel with a slow beat.

'Powdered Hand' is a deep drone with a soft keyboard melody played over the top and some vocal field recordings thrown in.

The mixture of ambience and dark drones with sudden outbursts of sound is nice, and a few of the tracks are great, but, overall it does start to sound the same. The music does work well if used for background music and some tracks can almost put you into a meditative state, but since about half of the tracks have sudden outbursts, you never know when that state will be interrupted. It's a good album, but really there isn't anything that improves on the excellent first album, in fact, it might be a lot harder for many people to listen to it, and there are some sections that really require close listening to get the full effect. This style has been done better by other artists, but, again, it's not like the music is terrible, it just doesn't vary much from the usual formulas.