Perhaps not unfairly, there’s always mutterings in the post-rock community that the genre is getting a little stale.
With sparseness and simplicity the order of the day, it can suffer as a result of these restrictions. While adhering to genre norms, This Will Destroy You are still able to bludgeon expectations. On this, their third record, they intersperse more pensive, ambient tracks such as God’s Teeth, Mother Opiate and The Puritan with songs that channel the dark, roaring sound of their earlier albums, with Dustism and Memory Loss the obvious examples. Out of the stunning heavier tracks, _New Topia _and Invitation stand out by upping the ante from merely crossing the quiet-to-loud rubicon, pushing some of the recorded layers into the red so they clip – presumably for aesthetic reasons, and to quite frankly brilliant effect. Counterpointing the extreme dynamics are clean melodies that draw out themes and anchor the tracks, taking an uncomfortably intense, pounding atmosphere, and giving the listener something to cling to. Not many bands can produce music this staggeringly intense, and we’re sure to be talking about this bold beauty for some time to come.
