THIS WORLD

I feel a little funny being the first to write about this album. I'd imagined the pairing of Zak Riles from Grails with drummer off the now legendary band Slint Britt Walford would make a bigger splash around these parts, yet 'This World' seems to have faded into obscurity even before it had it's day in the sun.

Tony Levin plays on this bad boy too. Ahhh there you go! You read a name you could sympathise with. This is not your everyday King Crimsonian effort though. 'This World' sounds more like a natural extension of what Zak Riles has been doing with his main band Grails for the last 10 years, which is a modern east meets west kind of thang - at times coming awfully close to a high breeze Popol Vuh on American steroids.

This album though sounds altogether more fluid and serene than anything Grails has ever put out. The music literally oozes out of your speakers - fluctuating between luscious electronic laden tidal waves and high towering post rock gestures. The individual tunes all have this watery connotation to them that echo the beautiful blue front cover...even when punctuated by the oaky note of an acoustic guitar. This genuinely speaks to my old friend synaesthesia.

Brief subdued piano segments to underline a melody. Chug-chugging sequencers imitating nature's own mechanical beat. Plucked guitar patterns slowly building into riffs and spiralling crescendos. One thing though; the music makes you wait a little before it lets you in on it's secret, but when it does you're swimming!

It's bubbly, floating, highly electronic yet rocking in all the right places - comes forth in big all-embracing waves of sound that more than anything else in 'this world' makes you feel at ease at sea...like being scooped up into the pocket of an ocean.