WE WERE EXPLODING ANYWAY

This album is not just your regular dreamy melancholic a bit sleepy post-rock one. And not twin-guitar driven repetitive string/bass storm. So, possibly you will hate it. Or you will open your eyes and ears wider, and will find something, what you will like in it.

56dos never was a very typical math rock band, but till now at least they tried to be in genre's frames. It looks this album is their step out from traditional post rock territory.

Music there is a hot fusion of modern electronic, dance rhythms and some post-rock guitars and atmosphere. It's not a secret anymore post-rock was born as explosion, but in very few years became self-closed society for dreamy repetitive atmospheric soundscapes and pseudo-classical strings arrangements. What is not bad at all. The problem was genre's formula was over-explored during few years, and bigger part of artists just stacked in yesterday's music for years. As a result, post-rock missed its fans. Everyone understands they need new blood. New ideas and new sounds.

I don't think the direction 65dos chose there on this album is the only way for post-rock evolution. But it is one of ways, fresh experimentation I missed in genre's music for a long time.

Returning back to album's music, in many senses it reminds me Squarepusher's revolution in jazz fusion sound. He combined modern electronic sound with live bass and jazz fusion structures. 65dos made similar revolution in post rock sound: electronic wall of sound with complex rhythms and structures are mixed with sound of post-rock live guitars and drums. Energy, rhythm, almost danceable compositions - plus characteristic dreamy ambient post-rock elements.

Squarepusher was ignored by many jazz fusion fans as enemies agent in their state, I believe this album will receive similar reviews from many orthodox post-rock lovers. Who cares - we know that progressive music is "progressive" because of its evolution, day to day searches of new experimental sound, and not because it is a frozen sound combination for museums.

P.S. The Cure goth-rock legend Robert Smith participated on "Come To Me".

Achtung! Possibly, many wouldn't accept this album as post-rock at all.

Got to make a kind of stand about this album. To many others this one is the weakest 65dos album but IMO is not bad at all. Different from the "classic" 65dos?... Yes!... Not proggy enough?... Maybe... Not post-rock? Definitively no.

Post-rock is an experimental genre that constatly look forward for innovation and new sounds. Well, this album is a kind of traditional post-rock album mixed with some hard electronic, drum & bass and even techo dance sections which sometimes enriches the musical textures we find on the 9 tracks of the album starting with the catchy opener "Mountainhead", located between the well-known hard rhythmical bases of this band and some pop beats. The second track, "Crash Tactics", is a classic "65dos-style" from the Stumble.Stop.Repeat era; a great, complex and heavy (but too short!) instrumental journey such as "Weak4".

If I got to pick another remarkable song of this album I go to "Debutante", a piece based on floating and hypnotic keyboards and soft but proggy guitar riffs. The other tracks got some poppish electronic mixtures, such as "Come With Me" with Robert "The Cure" Smith on vocals, and "Tiger Girl", a dance-electronic piece with some catchy rhythms extremely long and repetitive.

Got to say that is not an album for hard post-rock lovers but it has great and enjoyable sections, well made electronic athmospheres, and (why not?) awsome dance tracks. And maybe is the perfect piece to introduce some beginners into this genre. 3* to me?