THE FOURTH

While crossing psych/space, kraut and post rock territories AN EMERALD CITY are a typical borderline case. This album was recorded in Berlin soon after they had settled down there, comprising eight songs which show a rather hypnotic flow, often based on repetitive patterns. Spacey elements are strongly featured, coupled with an oriental touch and many reliably modern synthesizer contributions. So first of all I would name Grails and Turzi for some reasonable comparison.

b31 opens with a sample deriving from field recordings they took under way in Berlin. There is some New Order touch to state furthermore in my humble opinion, especially due to the bass playing. While counting in the dramatic organ alike synth elements and some soaring guitars they offer an interesting unique flavour here. The following Seizuretron is more of a motoric, even slight industrial feel - Felix Lun's violin is delightfully contrasting though. Circa Scaria now refers to their eponymous predecessor album from 2009 including a remarkable eastern ambience with tribal drums, sitar, violin and additional synth strings.

The dark-mooded title track comes like a jam then, dominated by a deep-toned repetitve bassline - the other instruments are skillfully meandering around. Creepy synths and wah-wah guitars take possession of Key To The Kingdom and the closing track Casual Encounters strikes due to an hallucinogenic flow based on a nice slow-paced groove and soaring spacey guitars and synths again. It definitely needed some concentrated listening sessions to get the album's spirit. 'The Fourth' can't reach for the excellence of albums like 'Deep Politics' ... but is a very good release throughout from a band which should also be checked out live, if you ever will have the chance to - 3.5 stars for this effort.