THE EXQUISITE DEATH OF SAXON SHORE

When I think of post rock greats, I think of bands that are inventive, emotional, dynamic, and orchestral. I think of Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, A Silver Mt. Zion, and even Oceansize. Those bands (among others) have defined the sound and refined the sound. I think of the texture of velvet or leather. Then there are a few other bands like God is an Astronaut and Saxon Shore that have attempted to popularize it and it makes me think of plastic. These bands have taken post rock and twisted it back to the mass public. This is the type of album you get when that happens. An album of music without a lot of heart. An album full of music that is underdeveloped and without the emotion.

That is also how this album comes across. These are mostly short post-rock sounding songs that most reviewers say are aimed at those people who like the post-rock sound but don't have the patience to wait for the climactic part of the song. Well, that would work fine I suppose if all post-rock was cut from the same mold. And I suppose a lot of the copycat bands do follow the same formula. However, the best bands explore and refine the formula, even move away from it. There are also a lot of post-rock bands that do shorter songs and still do them with emotion and originality, like Mogwai. I don't get that feeling with this album. I feel like I am listening to music that has been done before. This is post-rock with all the good stuff taken out of it. It is entry-level post-rock. Sure it has some fine moments, but I think those moments are reached by accident more than through musicianship. There is one excellent track on this album and that is "A Greatness at the Cost of Goodness". Other than that track, you get several short to medium sized tracks that don't explore much and that sound like they are making music based on a bunch of clichés, trying to take the post-rock formula and breaking it down to it's fundamentals, but leaving out everything that makes it original. It's almost like they are turning the genre into everything it is trying to stand against.

That is my main complaint with this album. It has no heart. That's a pretty big complaint. I can't call it poor because the production is good. I have to give it at least 3 stars because it is post-rock after all, but it just is not essential, groundbreaking, and it has no heart.