THE FUTURE SYMPHONY

This album is balancing between a meditative concept and clever architecture: LOSS OF A CHILD is undoubtedly a post rock child, utilising slow and meditative textures and ambiences, slowly building up. But, they're also incorporating other elements into their own story, making it twice as pleasant. There are some heavy moments - I won't dare to call them metal - but a significant role of a texturizer is given to the distorted guitar, and it works well. Keyboards are awesome; aside of obligatory piano, there are symphonic (yes, symphonic as in symphonic progressive rock) moments, where keyboards are emulating string timbres (violins, cellos); they don't sound 100% authentic, because the digital origin of the sound is evident, but they're doing really lovely job. And it's not only because of particular timbre(s) they resemble symphony; it's the overall attitude incorporated into the development of the songs. I'm not sure what was the overall intention of the band with this one, but it certainly sounds coherent. Plus, the title itself is "The Future Symphony", so you're free to interpret it as you like. I'm enjoying those pseudo-classical passages.

I already said this album is balancing between the two musical poles: meditation and architecture. They're actually not diametrically opposite, as one may found Bach's cold architecture very meditative, but almost as a rule, I consider artist that can not make up their own minds a point or two weaker then focused ones. Let me explain. If you're making diverse and complex music, a casual listener will appreciate complexity and meandering of the musical ideas. If you are doing a meditative piece, presumably it would be more simple, repetitive and transcendental. Of course, these definitions are disputable, but it seems they work for me quite often. In the most cases, if the art form is "uncertain" which direction to go, it weakens it.

That is not the case with this one. It's homogenic. It's solid. It is not like a musical piece knitted by a magic, combining two threads on the opposite side of a spectrum; it's more like using two ingredients, silver and gold, and melting them both; then mixing them together in a melting pot. That's the main reason why I like this album. Plus, when you are taking a look at the final product that is not liquid anymore, you will see all the little curves and shapes made of two precious colours. They are melodies.

It's available for FREE, you can DOWNLOAD it here: http://www.archive.org/details/lost_children

It's recommended for every prog fan, regardless of your favourite subgenre. A jewel, really. Give it a try!

The first release of this UK-based band, the realm of post-rock is explored in fair detail. If you have listened to post-rock much in the past, add some extra symphonic sounds and you can have a fair idea of what their sound is all about. 'The Future Symphony' is a running piece of music; that is, something that could be considered one single, epic-length song broken down into song-sized pieces. This gives a good sense of cohesion and album-appeal to the work, although it means you're not going to get any typical well-written single songs in the conventional sense. There are plenty of sections here that have a good sense of beauty about them, but after almost an hour of what ends up sounding like the same idea going over and over again, it can get tedious, more or less...

One of Loss Of A Child's greatest strengths is their ability to integrate heavy classical overtones into a post-rock soundscape. However, the purely classical 'symphonic' passages really don't end up working, seeing as there is a very artificial sound to the string sections. It ends up sounding like someone is messing with the different instrument settings on a keyboard in a music store. A big reason for the sameness throughout is that the same instrument combinations are used basically the whole time. The guitars make the expected sort of guitar textures and atmospherics they normally do in the genre, drums gently play in the background and most pronounced is the classical piano playing overtop everything. The piano can be a nice touch in places, but it loses its power when it's played doing the same thing most of the time.

The production is not superb, but solid for a debut. The musicians show alot of talent and potential with their writing on this album. There are definate changes that should be made further down the line, but a convincing blend of aesthetic beauty and haunting atmosphere makes for an enjoyable experience that has alot to offer if one is willing to overlook the flaws.