Well, I’ve read through the press release and I’m still none the wiser. Why? Well I think it’s largely due to the tumultuous fanfare it provides in lieu of any real facts; the bugles blast, the trumpets blow and a shaft of heavenly sunlight tears through the clouds by way of announcement. But do we know anything about them? Do we ‘eck. The obvious trouble with this kind of approach is that you raise expectations to such a towering, colossal level that nothing short of an Elvis/John Lennon resurrection miracle could ever satisfy them. On the otherhand, the loud, sweeping and protracted drama that precludes their arrival is rightfully as loud, as sweeping and as protracted as the shamelessly epic music that follows it: crashing cymbals, soaring, ecstatic vocals, inferno-sized guitars, multi-storey narratives and such grandiose imagery that William Blake’s Paradise Lost looks positively pedestrian by comparison. Those eager Post-Hardcore fans who lapped up this Leeds band’s pair of Top 40 single, ‘Nine’ and ‘Twelve’ will be doubtless surprised by their flamboyant transformation into a band that rivals At The Drive In and Mars Volta for thrashing progressive tangents, stop-start time signatures and deeply intense concepts, all fleshed out in a Billy MacKenzie/Associates, ‘Love Is A Wonderful Colour’ fashion.
Produced by Pearl Jam and Mastodon producer, Matt Bayles in Seattle, ‘Life Processes’ is overwrought, overindulgent and overcooked but performed with such wanton exuberance that it’s hard to criticize it. It’s like someone presenting you with a matchstick replica of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. You can’t fail to appreciate the work that has gone into it but nobody ever asked you if you wanted it in the first place.
‘LIFE PROCESSES’ RELEASED 21.04.08