作事平常喜复忧，机关可用不如休。

Post-rock has always focused on compositional finesse rather than instrumental virtuosity, and because of this, there are hordes of bands that can play Mogwai, but can’t write a post-rock track worth half a damn. Sure it’ll sound post-rockish, but the music will be derivative, formulaic, and just god-damned boring. Bands write stuff that seems like post-rock, but it’s really just post-crap, and it happens so much and plagues even the most venerated of bands, that I’ll have to coin a phrase for it. It’s called the Compositional Frontier, and bands that cross this frontier rise above the drudgery and mediocrity of those that are content to wallow beneath it. This Frontier is an essential element in what separates the John Coltranes from the Kenny Gs - the exciting and original from the tired and lame.

Worker Bee, with its debut EP, Divorce Your Legs, makes an admirable attempt to breach the elusive compositional barrier, but seems more comfortable just slinking along the periphery of the Frontier, knocking anxiously but never really breaking through. Opener "Country Moon II," for example, plays like a veritable patchwork of post-rock clichés. Some Mono-esque use of the delay pedal kick things off, and from there it’s like reruns of Post-Rock 101; you know, the final episode, where they go through every post-rock device used in the last decade? Crescendoing snare-drum build up? Check. Chugging power chords? Check. Obligatory loud passage? Yep, cue the distortion pedals. Of course, it’s not the devices themselves but the way they use them that’s the problem. Without bringing anything original to the table, "Country Moon" turns into a nondescript amalgamation of every post-rock track to date.

The other tracks manage to avoid the same level of generic banality pioneered by the opening track, but some parts still sound like the tail end of a marathon jam session, where tired musicians half-heartedly rehash old melodies and rhythms. Listening to Worker Bee gives the distinct impression that they plagiarize themselves, with parts of "Recital" and "Princess Importancy," for example, sounding so similar that they dissolve into a homogeneous soup of recycled musical ideas. Both tracks begin with a Do Make Say Think-style opening that inevitably builds up into… err, the most boring part of the track. Whenever the band pulls out the power chords and steps on the distortion, they are at their least creative, almost as if their distortion pedals have a secret boredom switch hidden in them.

With the penultimate track "Imploder," undoubtedly the standout of the bunch, Worker Bee seem to find that boredom switch and turn it off. The first crescendo exudes an energy lacking in the rest of the rather mundane tracks, sounding almost like a less-metal and less-creative Irepress. Afterwards briskly harmonizing guitars are thrown into the fray, and the band starts to come into their own, becoming less like a cheap facsimile of a number of post-rock bands and more like… well, Worker Bee.

In the end, you want this EP to be shorter. Divorce Your Legs showcases enough ideas for about two brilliant tracks, yet the band’s talents are diluted over a lukewarm 40 minutes. Occasionally, even during some moments of "Country Moon," Worker Bee gives small glimpses of what they are capable of, with sporadic bursts of exquisite melodies or rhythmic inventiveness, but these moments are lost in the subpar bulk of the EP. Given enough time for their focus to intensify, though, Worker Bee’s music seems set to coalesce into something truly magnificent.

-Joash (thesilentballet)

Immersed in it ...

It’s with a certain sense of inevitability that Rien, a French post rock band, haven’t got a clue what kind of music they want to make. Incorporating bizarre and nonsensical dialogue samples with guest vocalists (!) and whimsical genre familiarities, There Can’t Be Any Prediction Without Future is, if nothing else, a wholly eventful experience. Its duration basically expires as one long guessing game; the listener literally has no idea what’s coming next. Compounding this peculiarity is the fact that memorable passages of the record remain genuinely refreshing and accessible. They’re certainly a more inviting prospect when they try to sound like a cross between Modest Mouse and Rosolina Mar (“B.A.S.I.C.”) rather than the awful Theta Naught-lite meanderings of “Cortez”.

You would be forgiven for thinking that there would be little to advocate following the insipid opener “jesusfuckingchristallmighty” - a monochromatic preamble which includes irritating spoken vocals and a discordant instrumental jam. What follows is even more bizarre. Not only is “This Is Our Grunge” everything that the aforementioned isn’t - exciting, inventive, purposeful - moreover, it typifies the instrumental aesthetic: sounding like a Morricone cover, the breakdowns and progression are tempered with an assured creativity; the layers build from relative points and climax together; the sound is a band working with the genre’s conventions, not against them.

Another success is the commendable title track. Following more dialogue (charitably cut to just a minute this time), Rien deal with more avant garde soundscapes recently explored by the likes of We Vs Death and Neil On Impression. Although the sound is never as profound or substantial as that of their peers, the ingenuity and innovation should be applauded - palm muted guitars give way to horns and blaring crescendo’s, which in turn compact into Redneck Manifesto-lite plucking and serenity.  In this vein, the assertive “(Ballad)” is also a triumph by employing warm strings and choir vocals to complement the tremolo picking.

Ultimately, however, it’s their experimentalism that damages Rien’s sophomore record; it would, perhaps, be too easy to merely say that they attempt to fit far too much into an album that has no need place for it, but that would certainly be a cheap remark for such a patently eclectic work. Put it this way, then: there’s plenty to like, plenty to loathe. Let’s leave it at that.

-Alex Bradshaw (thesilentballet)

Immersed in it ...

Upon discovering that Nomia is set to release a split with Wood and Wires I cringe. I've not yet had a chance to listen to Nomia, but already I've discovered they have associated themselves with a band responsible for one of the most pitiful releases of 2006. It's not a good first impression to make, and I go into this listening experience prepared to face the worst...

"Momentous" starts off with some twinkling guitars and blood-thumping drumming, slowly turning the pot as the instrumentation stirs up a mess of a cosmic catastrophe. As the longest track on the effort, "Momentous" is the one that must carry the "post-rock torche," swelling between periods of brooding quietness and epic heaviness. Strangely, the rough quality of recording works wonders during the quiet parts, evolving the grittiness of the track to a full organism, but the louder parts have the edge taken off as the fuzziness takes over and reduces the wallop to a soft punch. "Through Oceans" is the strongest four minutes on Nomia, opening with a pulsating rhythm and then sliding into a chaotic breakdown. From there the track eases into simple guitar lines and stoic drumming. Halfway through the guitarist steps on Mogwai's distortion pedal and they launch into a devastating free for all, ending just as it opened with the silencing, oceanic rhythm.

From there the EP goes downhill. "Avistar" attempts to rework the appeal of "Through Oceans," but doesn't invest enough time to really make it work and is overly aggressive (attempting to steal the spotlight from "Through Oceans"? I think not...). "With Fire We Explode" should be the life-ending track that makes us crave more, but it really just fails to execute. Again, it's just too much with not enough execution. There are nice stretches along the way, but the final exclamation mark never comes and is lost amidst the pedal effects and fuzziness that permeates throughout.

Admittedly, Nomia holds its own on the four track EP; although as most first efforts go, the material is largely derivative of "the greats" (Mogwai, Isis, yada yada yada), and the production also leaves much to be desired. Outside of that, Nomia constructs a respectable twenty minutes of music which leaves enough possibilities to later be developed into something notable down the road. In due time we might see them making some headway and leaving jaws hanging wide open world wide.

-Lee Whitefield (thesilentballet)

Immersed in it ...