The follow up to 2008’s ‘What You Were’, ‘The Great Silence’ sees North dropping some of the prettier post-rock elements of their sound and picking up some heavier, sludge influenced inspirations, that’s most apparent on the guitars.
The atmospheric and delicate melodies have been sliced with a sledge hammer to give a jarring effect – combined with the gravel shaken vocals, this album makes for some truly teeth gritting moments. Each track is colossal in length – with some weighing in at over 15 minutes in length. North use this time in order to grind out razor sharp guitars blended with fuzz and ripples of ride bells and tom fills on the drums. ‘Sentience’ commands the most attention out of all the tracks on this record and is an assault on the senses from all angles with thundering vocals and rich tuning.
Despite North’s best attempts at tying together sludge and post rock, the latter genre often takes a front seat whilst the southern-most sounds are pushed to the back. Whilst trying to be too technical, the songs can, at times, feel like there is too much going on and with the rumble of sludge in the background it becomes messy and unfocused. The effect of such music should be crushing – whilst North pull this off, it is not to the desired effect. Sludge ought to be crushing due to a down tuned guitaring and heavy bass. This is simply crushing due to an unclear focal point and oversaturation.
(6/10 Angela Davey)
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