High Above The Storm – High Above The Storm

High Above The Storm

‘Post-rock’ is a term coined by Simon Reynolds in order to describe the work of musicians prone to “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords.”

While it’s been used to reference sounds as diverse as Don Caballero’s mathy polyrhythms and the avant-screech of Public Image Limited, the style it has become truly synonymous with is the lush, heavily instrumental crescendos so favoured by Bark Psychosis, Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor to name but a few. With their eponymous debut, High Above The Storm seem bent on joining these aural pioneers and taking their place in the post-rock lineage.

In fact, it could be said that they’re trying a little too hard. Listening to the record, it’s hard not to imagine the band checking off their big list of post-rock clichés; Dreamy fade-in? Check. Reverb-drenched guitars, Pianos, Vocals, Everything? Check. Skittering drum machines? Check. Songs over five minutes? Quintuple check. Even the wordy, elemental name ‘High Above The Storm’ is typical post-rock fare.

The production hardly helps matters. Although perfectly mixed, with every instrument having space to graze over the vast sonic landscape, they have been pasted with a veneer so thick and sleek it’s a surprise your ears can get purchase. Louis Warner’s vocals too, have this same curious mix of technical faultlessness and auditory blandness, making listening to the album all the way through a galling and hollow experience.

High Above The Storm is best when it deviates from the formulaic; the crisp, trebly bass that leads closer ‘Detour/Stranger Life’, courtesy of ex-Rothko man Crawford Blair, strides and twangs across the soundscape with almost funk-esque abandon. Red Hot Chili Peppers, watch your back. The Taxi Driver-sampling ‘Good For Me’ is probably the album’s highlight, mournful sighs over a simple, understated piano line and triphop breaks. It almost manages to be quite lovely.

Overall, this isn’t a bad record; it’s just one that lacks any semblance of innovation or charm. There just isn’t anything inspiring, anything earcatching, anything vital at all about High Above The Storm. It’s an album so in thrall to its influences it becomes just another pastiche of its post-rock forbears.

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