THE DEATH OF THE DAY

The Death Of The Day - (2013) *****

This is the best, the darkest, the most graceful, the most emotional, and even the most complete Battlestations record yet despite it's play time. By taking the best of the sonic textures that made A Cold Embrace so brilliant and condensing them into just under 30 minutes, The Death Of The Day is a masterful EP.

The sound, melody, and texture here does not deviate too far from where In A Cold Embrace left us, but if the previous release was the sound of the apocalypse by day, than this is the sound of the apocalypse by night. While keyboards and other electronics have never been a stranger to Battlestations music in the past, they have never made such a strong appearance as they do in The Death Of The Day. Imagine the pacing and overall feel of Slow Riot For Zero Canada by GY!BE mixed with some of the soundscapes, ambience, and occasional sequencing from Tangerine Dream's Rubycon.

The first track Dawn Of A Forgotten | The Adverse Reaction | There's Only So Much You Can Hear In A Sigh | While We're Still Here | Fractured is, in my opinion the best track the band has created so far. While it is segmented wildly into different sections like the tracks on the debut record, the flow and pacing here is much more mature and done masterfully. Each section reaches an emotional peak that outdoes the previous, a skill that many post rock bands cannot do. The guitar melodies here made the hairs stand up on my arms, and as the track came to it's piano/strings finale, I had to pause the album for a moment of solace; after 13 minutes of darkness and onslaught, Battlestations leaves us with a gleam of melancholic hope.

Scar | Breakdown is a scattered track, like fragments of an old reel of tape. It rolls along in its ambience and drones in the first half over some very nice jazzy brushes on the drums. This track is a wonderful juxtaposition to the first track. While Dawn Of A Forgotten feels like it had a definite destination, Scar | Breakdown feels like it's exploring the war torn landscape in which it was born. The second section Breakdown sounds exactly the way it needs to: the controlled chaos and fragments of the first part disintegrates into this soup of guitars, electronics, bells/chimes, strings, and percussion. The track slowly fizzles out without a definite feeling of closure...but...

Vise | Release gives us the satisfaction. It's the best way a Battlestations album has ended yet. The previous releases felt like they just stopped without a feeling of total completion. Vise | Release is perfectly named: Vise builds ominous tension with so many unsettling textures, volume swells, psychedelic guitars. The sound finally frees the listener from the dissonance and returns to a grand, beautiful strings/guitar melody ("the dust finally settles, the sun finally rises"). It almost feels as if it's the spiritual successor to the ending of the first track, but there is no darkness here, only joy and satisfaction.

In conclusion The Death Of The Day is an extremely fresh addition to the post-rock/electronic genre. This is definitely an exciting release to say the least, and I cannot wait to hear what the minds behind this band create next.

***** tracks: The first track Dawn Of A Forgotten | The Adverse Reaction | There's Only So Much You Can Hear In A Sigh | While We're Still Here | Fractured, Vise | Release

**** tracks: Scar | Breakdown

Battlestations is one of the best post-rock bands I've discovered in the last two years, their two studio albums are wonderful, well crafted, with long songs that caught my attention in every single minute and made me feel a lot of things, that's why I have recommended them to my friends, and that's also why I was happy when I saw they released a new EP. This is a 30-minute EP entitled "The Death of the Day", which contains 3 songs, being the first one the longest, and the one that shows the path of Battlestation's style. Curious to see a band from Belgium making this kind of music, but believe me, they are terrific.

The first one is the longest, covering half the EP's length, its name is "Dawn Of A Forgotten | The Adverse Reaction | There's Only So Much You Can Hear In A Sigh | While We're Still Here | Fractured", a track that I am sure you will easily remember due to its exquisite sound; here the band shows they are no longer beginners, they are musicians that can reach the highest post-rock standards, a band that is not praised as one of the best of the genre, but I dare say they are one of the top nowadays, you can tell it by their compositions, their well- crafted passages, the arrangements they implement in each part, and of course, the emotion needed they bring.

What I love the most (and ironically hate), is that the song finishes sooo quickly in spite its length, meaning I truly enjoy it and want to have more of it. The atmosphere might be somber, but it shows peace and calm, I like how it is divided in passages and how each of them has something to tell, I love the guitar game (both, acoustic and electric) and the soft electronic effects they implement. This song is like a short story divided in 5 fragments, my recommendation is to close your eyes and let the music do the rest, you will be transported to another place, I assure you.

"Scar|Breakdown" is the following track. It starts even more somber than the first one, the ambient might be a bit obscure in the first seconds, but later with the addition of guitars seems there is hope, the light is coming out little by little until the dark days are far behind. The drumming are always on good time, in the right place and right moment, the keyboards nuances let us feel things, feel like we are flying, relaxing our souls and thinking in the future. Every person has a different lecture of the music, it provokes endless things, but with me it really successes due to how well crafted the compositions are, and how the passages and its emotions appear just when they have to.

Finally, "Vise|Release" which is, as you can imagine, the shorter track. In spite of its short six minutes, it is a well composed track in which at first I felt like a robot in space, the tension and nervousness are present here, so hold tight and be prepared for the next. After two minutes new sounds are added, but the tension finishes, now the calm appears. You can now smile, feel free, you can let your spirit fly, you will have a smile on your face and a sense of satisfaction in the final three minutes of this song. This is a great way to finish this wonderful EP.

Since I listened to their two full-length albums I knew I would feel something for this band, now I can say they have touched me a lot, and I consider them to be monsters of the current post-rock scene, they have everything I could ask. This EP is wonderful, almost perfect, though I still prefer their "In A Cold Embrace", I can highly recommend this one, which is free to download, by the way. My final grade will be 4.5 stars, but it will stay at 4.

Enjoy it!