Caspian - Tertia (2009)

Caspian are a five-piece post-rock group from Massachusetts. “Tertia” is their second full-length album, and like their debut, it’s pretty standard fare for this type of music. To be honest, it does not really deliver what I look for in the genre, but is a fine album nonetheless. Very few post-rock bands turn their instruments into truly communicative devices. Mogwai did it on their best work. Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros do so without fail, crafting music that might as well be spoken in plain English because of the wealth of thoughts and images it conjures to go along with the sheer beauty of the songs. “Tertia” doesn’t really do that. It does create a mood, but the mood is often very created in a very rudimentary, obvious sort of way. The guitars swirl in a dissonant sort of way, often with the rhythm section and keys thundering behind it. The image created by this is a simple one. Many post-rock bands can do this in their sleep—give the illusion of tension building and then subsiding, like a storm approaching and then giving way. The best songs of this genre make it more convincing though. They do it in a “show, don’t tell” sort of way. Caspian do a fine job of imitating the basics of post-rock, but this album isn’t a very powerful listen. Then again, when I want a good instrumental album, sometimes it’s enough for it to just rock for forty minutes. I can put Caspian on and listen without feeling like time was wasted, but nothing about them will drop your jaw. LISTEN

Tracklist
01. Mie (4:12)
02. La Cerva (5:00)
03. Ghost of the Garden City (7:32)
04. Malacoda (5:02)
05. Epochs in DMaj (5:03)
06. Of Foam and Wave (6:16)
07. Concrescence (4:22)
08. The Raven (6:59)
09. Vienna (6:12)
10. Sycamore (9:00)