If Miracle Fortress can just find his own voice, it's going to be something very special indeed.
Label: Secret City Released: 12th September 2011 Reviewer:Simone Scott Warren
A one man band, in this case Graham Van Pelt's alter ego Miracle Fortress, self producing their own album, seems like a terribly dangerous idea. After all, who's on hand to tell them when they're being self indulgent? Who else is there to say, enough, we've done now, it's ready? Particularly when, as is the case with Miracle Fortress' sophomore album here, each track is comprised of layer upon layer upon layer of sound, there must be a constant danger of sliding headfirst into the category of 'overcooked'.
Fortunately, there's no such problem here, although it may go some way to explaining the four year gap between this and Miracle Fortress' debut long player. 'Was I the Wave?' is, for the most part, a beautiful, vaguely threatening slice of electro-indie pop. Why, it would appear that Van Pelt has even gone to the trouble of channelling the spirit of Brian Eno, circa 1978, in order to ensure the album feels as ambient as humanly possible. Eno's presence is felt keenly all over the record, and particularly on 'Believe', a haunting, disconcerting number, comprising slices of electronic hums and discords, that appear for all intents and purposes to be building to some massive crescendo, and proceeds to abruptly cease before anything much can happen.
Elsewhere on the album, our intrepid Canuck does his best impression of a masculine Au Revoir Simone on the lighter 'Spectres', which shimmers with 80's indebted keyboards. 'Tracers', which wouldn't sound out of place on the last Foals' album, with it's heavy drums and calculated guitar patterns, exemplifies the layered tone of the record, at times it feels as though you could spend hours trying to trace one sound throughout the track from start to finish. And 'Raw Spectacle', with it's soft falsetto vocals contradicting the tribal beat beneath sounds like the Friendly Fires number St Albans finest have yet to write.
The issue with the album is obvious, it's influences are rather too keenly felt, too easy to pinpoint and reference. Whilst you could apply that old argument that there's nothing new, artistically, left to create, 'Was I The Wave?' leaves the listener with the feeling that, if Miracle Fortress can just find his own voice, it's going to be something very special indeed. Let's hope we don't have to wait another four years for that to happen.Rating: 7/10
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