(c) Sara Wolff
Sound even by post-rock standards A Burial At Sea somehow different. The duo from Ireland, now based in Liverpool, expands the instrument pool to include brass and also brings in influences from math rock and jazz to shoegaze and post metal. With their second album, not only did they move, but they also moved to Pelagic Records, where they conceived it during an extremely introspective lockdown phase „Close To Home“ among other things, puts melodies from the protagonists’ childhood and folklore into a new context.
It’s difficult to pick out individual songs because it’s the entirety that makes this album so great. And yet there are highlights that deserve special attention, like “masterfred”. This uncharacteristically quiet song with intensified shoegaze elements buries its instruments under massive blankets of reverb for half of it before the guitars come in and, together with the brass, release massive pressure waves. The final “DALL” puts the feverish idyll – a skillfully resolved contradiction in itself – in the middle of the action, while all around it becomes wild, unrestrained, downright euphoric.
For “Hy-Brasil”, A Burial At Sea makes perhaps the biggest break in style. They abandon their first big buildup towards catharsis and instead rely on math rock bounce with longing brass. At some point the track expands, becomes louder and more distorted, and takes on metallic characteristics. That shouldn’t work, but it’s at least as fun as the initial shyness of “páirc béal uisce”, which follows comparatively typical post-rock patterns. The big cathartic climax with subtle jazz vibes gets under your skin, while the following “tor head” initially comes across as raw and effervescent before the epic yet rough action sorts itself out.
Expectations and conventions are given no room to breathe in A Burial At Sea. Instead, this wild record in the ideal vinyl length constantly waves back and forth, looking for new forms of expression and actually does away with every single idea. “Close To Home” is different in the best, most pleasant sense, a nervous wreck and at the same time an ode to the beauty of the moment, to the past and the future, to nostalgia and home. The Irish duo is once again looking for new forms of expression that seem honest and natural at the same time, that tell beautiful stories and are happy to reach out with courage – a second album that is magnificent from start to finish and could give a whole genre fresh impetus.
Rating: 9/10
Available from: February 23, 2024
Available via: Pelagic Records (Cargo Records)
Website: www.aburialatseaband.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ABurialAtSeaUK
Slider-Pic (c) Sara Wolff
Category: Magazin, Reviews