Chicago’s Volcano! may well be mistaken for the aural equivalent of finding yourself being locked in at the crèche in IKEA, an intense experience of claustrophobia soundtracked by hyperactive children playing with a drum machine. Whilst that doesn’t quite capture what the band sound like, it’s mostly because the band’s sound is so hard to pin down.
A few listens in and you find there's bucket loads of melody wading around in that pool of noise (‘Fairy Tale’ is a good example), though at times there is simply too much going on to fully appreciate what you can hear. Opening track ‘Performance Evaluation Shuffle’ is a good a taster for the rest of the album, a frenetic clash of drums, distorted guitars and stop start rhythms, whilst the beautiful ‘Astronomer’s Ballad’ is the album highlight.
Their debut album, ‘Beautiful Seizure', raised a few eyebrows upon its release back in 2006, fusing jazz and fuzzy guitars into a sound that the band seem to have stripped down for their follow up. Lead singer Aaron With’s crooning isn’t a million miles away from early day Muse sprinkled with Robert Smith; the unique mix of sounds proves to be the bands biggest selling point.Rating: 7/10
volcano! - Paperwork
News
RSS Feed
Comments