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Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die CD (album) cover

MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE

Tortoise

 

Post Rock/Math rock

3.73 | 108 ratings

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TRoTZ
Prog Reviewer
5 stars When everyone thought rock had nothing more to offer, Tortoise appeared with their debut album, and specially this album, "Millions Now Living Will Never Die". "Here it is. Our contribute to a new breath, a new rock" they would say. A kind of music which rejected every stereotype created by rock so far, yet formally imbued in it's architecture. Whilst being melodic, melody per se was rejected. Every instrument was born to paint, to texture, to create images. Notes were just vehicles to atmospheres. A kind of feeling already embraced softly by Slint, even Talk Talk, some years earlier, but here materialized definitely.

The monstrous "Djed" is the album's centerpiece, its inconspicuous beauty relies in recreating an introspective journey which can belong to anyone, fit in everything, while not being nothing at the same time. It starts with a joyful tune around an imposing hypnotic riff, with bass and organ praising it together, along with some electronic details adding a comfortable strangeness. The journey growingly becomes layered and layered, submerging in a evolving jam of vibes, and then into a constellation of ubiquitous space noises and memorable vibes, almost as if we were disintegrated from this world. The track ends in the apparent peace of its beginning, as if we had found what we were looking for. Rest of the album flow very well with some outstanding moments. "Glass Museum" reaches beautiful levels of subtlety between the dreamy atmospheres and an interlude of sonic vibe power, while the nostalgic "Along the Banks of Rivers" ends the album in a painful serenity.

This is an historical album for rock music. Post-Rock was born. Rock was definitely progressive again. By the 90's finals, this was, for the most skeptical minds, the imposing manifest that progressive rock was not dead.

TRoTZ | 5/5 |

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