Some twenty years into their existence French heavyweights Year of No Light are having a damn busy summer. A new album in the shape of Consolamentum and a career spanning box set of their previous 5 full-lengthers – quite an achievement after what has been a year and half of little light in this plague-ridden world.
Fans of the Bordeaux sextet will not be disappointed in the new material. As expected, this album is filled with expansive heavy post rock, with riffs the size of zeppelins crashing across swathes of electronics and thunderous drums to conjure up cinematic sound collages that transport the listener to a dark, stark but beautiful world. What more can one ask on a rainy July day eh?
Opening with the epic “Objuration” the album begins as a weary trudge weighed down by the dripping sludge riff that forces it forwards. Post rock ambience wrestles with heavy dirty doom and ultimately loses.
Aletheia begins in a more gentle post punk way. A warm bass throb joins a gothic guitar line that brings to mind Joy Division and Christian Death. It builds into a soaring dreamy ethereal swoopy sweepy number that makes me want to wear a floaty nightgown on a cliff top, terrifying children on a geography field trip. But maybe that is just me. It builds into a thumping darkness which consumes all light. Quite lovely.
After all this playing about spooking folks in vintage lingerie it is time to come crashing back down to earth with the minimalist heft of “Interdits aux Vivants, aux morts et aux chiens” (Forbidden to the living, to the dead and to dogs). Pummelling riffs cut through with melancholy and some low level industrial Electronic drum beats, this paints quite the stark portrait.
“Realgar” which follows has a pounding riff but lifts the mood with a high-pitched guitar line to give the track a hopeful, graceful air. That just means that when it reaches its pinnacle and fades the riff and accompanying low end keys sound even more devastating.
Final track “Came” lurches in on an old school synth-wave vibe. Very VHS Sci fi block buster – I was waiting for Michael Biehn or Rowdy Roddy Piper to stroll into view. The band allow the track to build organically (or should that be synthetically?) which ramps up the movie score vibe. Midway through synth strings gather like a swarm of killer drones then all hell breaks loose. It’s like an epic anime fight scene as the electronics ramp up to a black metal pace and I can almost smell the spilled oil and sparking engines about to ignite. Jonathan Pearce would have no chance commentating on this robot war!
The Year of No light make movies for the ears, using a combination of big brush stroke riffs and mechanical pencil nuance to bring each track to biomechanical life. Good stuff
(7.5/10 Matt Mason)
Leave a Reply