YOU ARE THE CONDUCTOR

Caspian are yet another unheralded American post-rock band that emphasizes highly repetitive and sometimes complex guitar progressions in their music augmented by digital sound loop sequences and the obligatory cymbal-heavy drums. The music on this (their debut EP) is nothing spectacular or innovative, but unlike a lot of other emerging bands on minor labels they manage to craft a sound that is more distinctive than derivative, so for that they merit a listen by fans of this genre of music.

Just for the sake of comparison to give those who don’t know the band some sense of their music, I would say the most well-known band they come closest to resembling is probably Sigur Rós. This EP consists of one basic theme spread across five short and one longer track, and all of them are somewhat in the vein of “Sæglópur” but without most of the ambient parts of that song. Caspian just as energetic as Sigur Rós in the heavier drone parts of their tracks, but the difference is they don’t let up much like Sigur Rós does so the overall effect is one of a pretty aggressive band working hard to make a definitive statement.

My only complaint really is that this is a pretty short album even for an EP, clocking in at only twenty- seven minutes even with the nine minute-plus closing track “Last Rites”. My understanding is the band had a couple other demo discs in the can by the time they released this, so I’m a bit curious why they didn’t extend this to an entire album to make the effort truly worthwhile.

But this is a minor annoyance at best, and the music that is here is prototypical post-rock played with the expected level of precision and vigor so it isn’t likely to disappoint anyone who picks it up. The arrangements do tend to be a little predictable though, and at several points (particularly on “Further Up” and “Last Rites”) I found myself humming in advance what I expected their next change-up to be. I was usually dead-on. There are some very subtle loops that are tastefully embedded among the guitar drones that are quite beautiful if you catch them, but I would say you’ll need a very good and loud stereo to do so – you will undoubtedly miss many of the layers on a set of earbuds connected to an mp3 player for sure.

Also the presence of the glockenspiel adds a nice touch. That instrument tends to sound like a myriad of bells when played well, which is a great complement to the ever-present twin guitars.

Like I said, nothing special and surely not essential, but this is a very decent work by an emerging band and worth the modest price if you can find it. Recommended with three stars.

peace