AEROGRAMME

AEROGRAMME
SLEEP AND RELEASE (2003)
320 KBPS

Sleep and Release, the second album from beardy Scots avant-rockers Aereogramme, finds their titanic dynamic stretching into new realms of beautiful expansiveness. This band walk a somewhat dangerous path: melding dreamy symphonic rock into passages of brittle electronica and coruscating death-metal, Aereogramme make an excessively complex music that's saved only from the precipice of prog by its well-paced climaxes and genuinely emotive hooks. But it's the sensitive production that makes the sprawling complexity of Sleep And Release a joy.
Aerogramme have clearly taken a cue from the The Delgados, their Chemikal Underground label bosses: the glorious likes of "Black Path" and "Older" blossom with the kind of breathtaking sonic fullness that elevated albums like The Great Eastern to the status of minor indie-rock classics. If there's one irritation here, it's that a couple of tracks pay homage a little too explicitly: the thrumming bass-line of "Indiscretion # 243" so clearly apes the style of Kim Deal that you're virtually outraged on her behalf and the martial rhythms and sombre violin laments of the unnamed final track suggest more than a passing knowledge of the work of Godspeed You Black Emperor. Still, the final result is a powerful album that confirms the name Chemikal Underground as an enduring hallmark of quality.

1. Indescretion #243
2. Black Path
3. A Simple Proces of Elimination
4. Older
5. No Really, Everything’s Fine
6. Wood
7. Yes
8. In Gratitude
9. A Winters Discord