Categories : Electronica, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3.5/5 Released: November 1, 2006 Reviewer: Danielle Suchet |
Stars of Track and Field’s Centuries Before Love and War manages to do what many bands have been trying to achieve for years: reconcile the seemingly contradictory elements of organic musicianship and techno-pop. The follow-up album to their self released debut EP, You Came Here for Sunset Last Year, is a cathartic emotional collection of rainy day melancholia, dealing with love and loss.
Comparisons to Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, and National Skyline are not unfounded, but it is more a pastiche of all these musical elements that best describes the group’s sound. With the loss of their bass player a year and a half ago the band decided to replace the bass with an electronic sound instead, lending a futuristic stark elegance to their work.
The wistful lyrics on the track ‘Fantastic,’ such as “you light on fire / I’ll be outside / last one to notice / run for your life†follows the theme of loss that seems to feature in most of the songs. Standouts are ‘Movies of Antarctica,’ with its soft epic repetitive riffs and ‘US Mile 5.’
With their name coming from a Belle and Sebastian song, the band is certainly innovative in their style, but not necessarily as ground breaking as some of the influences they claim, such as Pink Floyd and Radiohead.
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