ALBUM REVIEW: How Do We Want to Live? – Long Distance Calling

LONG DISTANCE CALLING gets philosophical and biological with latest full length, How Do We Want To Live?, an album whose release will forever be inextricably intertwined with the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from sweeping instrumentation and ambitious, atmospheric rock, these instrumental legends produce a meticulously planned and well-executed concept album, which tragically lets itself down with the inclusion of preachy and annoying samples.

The latest full-length release from instrumental prog-rockers LONG DISTANCE CALLING is a release which will forever be linked to the global crisis which we are all going through. It’s hard for any 2020 release not to be, true, but for an album whose overarching themes include science, disease, and human folly, this cannot be helped but be seen as a direct reaction to the devastation and general messiness that is 2020.

The band, despite having lyrics that are few and far between, have become experts at conveying frustration, anger, euphoria, and politically-charged messages through their instrumentation alone – no small feat. The band also employ music videos, social media statements and samples within the music itself to convey their messages, but therein lies the problem, as some of these messages become more than a little heavy-handed throughout the runtime of an album such as this.

The video for Immunity might be a good example of this. An already-emotive and politicised song, the video amalgamates footage filmed by fans all over the world of closed down streets and empty cities, interspersed with news footage presenting the onset of the coronavirus. Without the video, the song is a good example of instrumental prog-rock, which builds to satisfying conclusions and layers of frustration and despair conveyed through the lyric-less music. But with the video, the point is hammered home to the point of pastiche, or at the very least, to the point of you switching the video off and just listening to the music in order to avoid the onslaught of yet more stories of the real world.

Songs such as Voices illustrate why this might be such a shame. Building upon the musical themes laid out in the first few tracks, Voices is the track in which LONG DISTANCE CALLING’s mission statement is fully revealed and explored for the first time. The song builds to an anthemic climax and there are heavier, doom-ier passages incorporated as well. The music is riling, tender and heavy at different moments. A hard-rock approach with prog and post elements, these guys bring it all together with ease, and will certainly have a lot of widespread appeal.

The vocals in Beyond Your Limits are a pleasant surprise which push the boundaries of this band’s reach and prove that they can try their hand at more than just atmospheric instrumentals. The vocals fit nicely with the band’s sound and it’s all carried off pretty well… Just in time for it to all fall apart in the final track. In case you weren’t already made abundantly clear, the last track of this album informs you that this album is all about the triumph of science over human stupidity. In the form of a spoken word poem, the band tells us that “humans are the disease” and compare the population growth to the spread of a virus, and to cancer. It’s not the nicest thing to end an album on, and the point has already been made (several times) throughout this album’s runtime. 

It’s a real shame, since LONG DISTANCE CALLING pride themselves so much on politicising the music itself without need of words, that they feel like they need this outro to end on. The music itself is excellent, but this last bit of preachy spoken word really taints the experience of listening to this album. Yes, humans have messed up, over time and especially at the moment, but listening to music should be a way to distract yourself from the horrors of the world – or a rallying call to arms to protest against the way things are being handled – and this sample is neither.

Rating: 7/10

How Do We Want To Live? is out now via InsideOut Music.

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