THE DEATH OF THE DAY

This is the best, the darkest, the most graceful, the most emotional, and even the most complete Battlestations record yet despite it's play time. By taking the best of the sonic textures that made A Cold Embrace so brilliant and condensing them into just under 30 minutes, The Death Of The Day is a masterful EP.

The sound, melody, and texture here does not deviate too far from where In A Cold Embrace left us, but if the previous release was the sound of the apocalypse by day, than this is the sound of the apocalypse by night. While keyboards and other electronics have never been a stranger to Battlestations music in the past, they have never made such a strong appearance as they do in The Death Of The Day. Imagine the pacing and overall feel of Slow Riot For Zero Canada by GY!BE mixed with some of the soundscapes, ambience, and occasional sequencing from Tangerine Dream's Rubycon.

The first track Dawn Of A Forgotten | The Adverse Reaction | There's Only So Much You Can Hear In A Sigh | While We're Still Here | Fractured is, in my opinion the best track the band has created so far. While it is segmented wildly into different sections like the tracks on the debut record, the flow and pacing here is much more mature and done masterfully. Each section reaches an emotional peak that outdoes the previous, a skill that many post rock bands cannot do. The guitar melodies here made the hairs stand up on my arms, and as the track came to it's piano/strings finale, I had to pause the album for a moment of solace; after 13 minutes of darkness and onslaught, Battlestations leaves us with a gleam of melancholic hope.

Scar | Breakdown is a scattered track, like fragments of an old reel of tape. It rolls along in its ambience and drones in the first half over some very nice jazzy brushes on the drums. This track is a wonderful juxtaposition to the first track. While Dawn Of A Forgotten feels like it had a definite destination, Scar | Breakdown feels like it's exploring the war torn landscape in which it was born. The second section Breakdown sounds exactly the way it needs to: the controlled chaos and fragments of the first part disintegrates into this soup of guitars, electronics, bells/chimes, strings, and percussion. The track slowly fizzles out without a definite feeling of closure...but...

Vise | Release gives us the satisfaction. It's the best way a Battlestations album has ended yet. The previous releases felt like they just stopped without a feeling of total completion. Vise | Release is perfectly named: Vise builds ominous tension with so many unsettling textures, volume swells, psychedelic guitars. The sound finally frees the listener from the dissonance and returns to a grand, beautiful strings/guitar melody ("the dust finally settles, the sun finally rises"). It almost feels as if it's the spiritual successor to the ending of the first track, but there is no darkness here, only joy and satisfaction.

In conclusion The Death Of The Day is an extremely fresh addition to the post-rock/electronic genre. This is definitely an exciting release to say the least, and I cannot wait to hear what the minds behind this band create next.

***** tracks: The first track Dawn Of A Forgotten | The Adverse Reaction | There's Only So Much You Can Hear In A Sigh | While We're Still Here | Fractured, Vise | Release

**** tracks: Scar | Breakdown

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