Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Album Review: Planning For Burial- Desideratum

Planning For Burial
Desideratum
*** out of *****
They got it right calling Planning For Burial a "gloomgaze" act. The newest release, Desideratum, is a clanging mix of noise and majestic swirls playing long and working up over hills and depressions.

Planning For Burial is a solo project from Matawan, New Jersey's Thom Wasluck who does it all himself from the drums, machines, guitars, pianos and synths to the deeply buried vocals and loops. Impressive in its structure, things are certainly dark here but like successful other entries in this genre it is the rays of light that make it stand out from the depressing crowd.

That can easily be seen on the opener "Where You Rest Your Head At Night". Containing grating repetitive guitars that melt into a drone the track feels bleak before a hopeful piano phrasing works its way through the darkness propelled by a upward mobile drum, all of which fights to break through the six string strangle hold. Noisily glorious.

The title track cuts the distortion for more of direct piano based approach and this strategy of LOUD/soft/LOUD tracks continues throughout as "29 August 2012" blasts and "Purple" releases. The long "Golden" closes out the disk combing all of Wasluck's likes into one massive feedback driven metallic stew.

The music on Desideratum is engaging but like many acts in the shoegaze/doom field vocals are an issue, words are unintelligible trapped behind walls of noise and singing seems to just be another layer of sound in the mix. Texture and tone are at the forefront though and the bright bleakness makes Planning For the Burial worth following.   
______________________________________________________________________
Interesting release, you can follow the artist here, buy the disk here, stream their tunes here and peep some video below:
  Planning For Burial - Desideratum Album Teaser from planning for burial on Vimeo.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment