Grappling with what the hell this is!
Artiste: North Atlantic Oscillation
Nationality: British (Scottish)
Album: Grappling hooks
Year: 2010
Label: KScope
Genre: Progressive/Electronica
Tracks:
Marrow
Hollywood has ended
Cell count
Some blue hive
Audioplastic
Ceiling poem
Alexanderplatz
77 hours
Star chamber
Drawing maps from memory
Ritual
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: A strange name to pick for a band, the North Atlantic Oscillation is in fact a feature of climate, reflecting fluctuations in atmospheric pressure.
Initial impression: Er, atmospheric and ambient...
Best track(s): Marrow, Cell count, Audioplastic, Ritual
Worst track(s): I couldn't honestly say any were bad. Weird, yes. Hard to get my head around, yes. But bad? No.
Comments: I have literally no idea what to expect from these guys. Some quarters describe them as progressive rock, others ambient, others electronica. So when the album starts up on the short almost instrumental
Marrow I'm impressed/relieved (delete as appropriate), but suddenly heavy drums crash in and an indistinct vocal sings, sounding like it's being drowned out by the music. The track ends on some bare drumbeats and leads into a Porcupine Tree-like ballad with a much clearer vocal which puts me in mind of Waters and, due to the odd backing vocals, the Beach Boys. Some strange fiddling around on the synth, Eno-style, does little to clarify matters, and as the album goes on it becomes increasingly hard to pin down to any style or genre.
There are big, booming drumbeats, loops, samples, slick guitar solos, fiddly keyswork and a rather pleasing gentle vocal that grows on you after the first track has made, let's be honest, a bad impression, but you forget that as the voice of Sam Healey washes over you like a refreshing summer wave, and it's kind of Pink Floyd on steroids, if you can imagine such a thing. Steven Wilson would certainly be at home here. There's a lot of hard guitar in
Audioplastic, while
Alexanderplatz is driven my a mix of pianos, synth and crunchy drumbeats against a hollow-sounding, echoey vocal.
There are moments when NAO really rock out, as on
77 hours, with a really powerful, infectious ending, featuring what I can only describe as mad piano that comes across like Waits playing with Diablo String Orchestra, and the frankly pure insanity and expressionism of
Star chamber, with some very simple but effective piano lines thrown in just to confuse you further. In fact, as the album goes on it gets heavier and more uptempo, until by the time you hit
Drawing maps from memory it's hard to remember there were quieter songs at the beginning, and it's become something of a sonic assault, though still very melodic and enjoyable.
Then, as if to bring things full circle and back to earth a little,
Ritual is led in by a gorgeously simple piano line joined by some exquisite keys that sound like xylophone or vibraphone, some haunting vocal interchange, almost chanting to a point, then they settle into a proper rhythm and some keening guitar joins the mix. Hard to believe they maintain this essentially simplistic melody throughout seven minutes, but with a sudden explosion of guitar to add colour and strength to the track it's the longest on the album, and certainly a standout for me. A tiny, forty-second bit of piano and synth to close and we're done. And I'm, well, impressed but a little confused as to what I've just listened to.
Overall impression: What ... the ...
fudge ... was
that?
Intention: Lie down in a dark room and think about this for a while.