It would easy to get geographically bogged down here but just to get things straight Northumbria are not from oop North in England as you might expect but come from Canada. One can only guess that environmentally there are many things that the two places may have in common and if the image of wide and windswept vistas comes to your mind on seeing the band name you would certainly be in the right place musically. What we have here are 5 vast soundscapes (well four really as the first Transcendence serves more as a shorter introduction) running over 43 minutes running time.
File this one under an instrumental post metal tag for ease of placing it somewhere but then be prepared to pay heed to the fact that the album is mastered by the ever reliable James Plotkin and that it has a healthy backbone of drone about it too. It’s all rather mellow at first and allows you to settle down expecting a cloud watching, dreamy and ambient listen but naturally further down the line you should expect the clouds to burst and give you a good old soaking. After the intro piece gently ebbs in it’s down to ‘The Ocean Call Us Home’ to build and layer things up. The two musicians here Jim Field and Dorian Williamson no doubt stand behind electronic banks on playing live and it is these and guitar and bass that takes us off on this voyage. A guitar weeps away and at first I thought it was going to go on into the American national anthem! You can feel the brooding drone quietly throbbing in the background and this and the guitar play is what your attention centres on. Nothing is rushed it’s all left to organically flow leaving you in a relaxed and comfortably numb sort of state. Funnily, despite the track title it does not feel watery but more dry and arid to me but I guess everyone will interpret it in their own way if indeed it is something that you would give any particular thought to. ‘Ostara’ which I am guessing refers to the spring equinox is also very chilled and by now you could well be in a pile and completely monged out. It’s very filmic and soundtrack orientated and conveys a feeling of wide open panoramas bereft of man, completely desolate and touched just by a gentle breeze. I guess it would be pretentious saying there is a feel of rebirth to it but there is if you take it in hand with how I have interpreted the actual track title.
Still essentially minimalist in scope ‘The Silver Forest’ has a bit more (earthy) substance to it as tones are expanded upon and the mournful melody glistens away. The bass throb drone is a bit more strident here and things are certainly growing and coming into bloom. It’s easy to lose yourself within it all and despite the lengthy running times of the tracks they never become stale or boring and seem to run their course quicker than you may expect. The title track is the last and a lush melody that would not be out of place on a Solstafir number flows in around more of a jarring guitar wail. In order to bring down the sky it’s obvious that this is the number that is going to have more of denseness about it and if you are playing this loud on a good system the bass frequencies should be giving things more of a shaking on the still heavily ambient work. It all trembles away and although threatening to explode never quite does, it’s not really the nature of this beast and it kind of plays on the listeners expectations more than anything else.
Bring Down The Sky has had several plays and has as I am sure it is designed to got the imagination flowing. Despite the fact that on first encounter it may strike has having little substance about it there is quite a lot to be found dwelling within its tracks. Not quite a total ‘chill out’ of an album but close to one, I enjoyed this for what it was and was even more intrigued reading that it was apparently recorded live in a 19th century church. Take a trip at the following link.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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