ALBUM REVIEW: Apart – Feed Me To The Waves
Swedish post-rock collective FEED ME TO THE WAVES are part of a growing crop of bands unafraid to eschew vocals and write music purely instrumentally, telling stories of loss, longing, separation and closeness all without lyrics to pin down exact stories. After their second album Intill was so warmly received, the band struck out to explore how people can balance their own personal triumphs with more worldly challenges; that significance has only magnified over the last few years, for a myriad of obvious reasons. That in turn widened the scope of what became Apart, their third album and perhaps most poignant yet.
With this in mind, FEED ME TO THE WAVES have crafted a dynamic, layered and complex album that draws on those themes as well as folding in feelings of longing and separation, one that ebbs and flows between moments of soft contemplation and almost overwhelming maximalism. At almost an hour long and just eight songs, it certainly fits the mould for a post-rock epic, and opener Never Able makes no moves to dispel that notion. Shimmering strings open, offering a sense of calm before the coming storm. It’s a slow build of a crescendo, but when it does hit the band truly know how to fire on all cylinders.
The Now And The Longing acts as its foil, mostly serene softer passages though still knowing when to bring huge swathes of distortion and feedback to bear. It All Lingers follows in a similar vein, though again fortunately the band showcase their skill with dynamics to ensure that it doesn’t become either dull in its slowness or overwrought with overlong crescendos. If anything, these two act as almost interludes before the band cast listeners once more into the mammoth nine-minute runtimes of About Present Tense and Wither So Brightly.
If there’s obvious comparisons to make, it’s to bands such as PG.LOST or CASPIAN, whose dynamic, emotional post rock has brought them acclaim and coveted slots at UK festivals like the forward-thinking ArcTanGent. In that sense, FEED ME TO THE WAVES aren’t doing anything particularly groundbreaking; there are no ideas here that other bands in their sphere don’t already do. However, the band’s use of dynamics, unconventional hooks and tense emotional passages ensure that Apart doesn’t simply become another instrumental post-rock album.
Those ruminations of separation and whether we can celebrate our own joys in times of global sorrow are particularly poignant even without lyrics; About Present Tense in particular feels as if its opening moments grapple with despondency at the state of the world and the state we’ve found ourselves in over the past few years, but with little flourishes that hint at light to be found. By closer Triumph Of Existing, which paints the picture of its name and also pulls in sublime saxophone melodies, there’s a real sense of not just balancing the duality of sorrow and joy but being able to celebrate those personal joys even while the world seems to burn. It’s an immensely powerful moment that ends Apart on a huge high.
It leaves the album in a very interesting place; FEED ME TO THE WAVES have created an emotionally saturated narrative full of feedback, distortion and reverb, as well as allowing it to break into moments of beauty and acceptance. They’ve done it largely within the confines and tropes of post-rock, but the moments they step outside even a little, such as with Triumph Of Existing, elevate the album but also leave the rest feeling somewhat underwhelming by comparison. It’s not bad by any stretch, but Apart’s best moments come at the end of a solid preamble and leave what came before feeling sadly less impactful.
Rating: 7/10
Apart is out now via Dunk!records.
Like FEED ME TO THE WAVES on Facebook.