This Will Destroy You - Moving on the Edges of Things (2010)

Artist/Album: This Will Destroy You—Moving on the Edges of Things

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Recommended if you like: Noisy, ambient post-rock.

Released By: Magic Bullet

Favorite Tracks: Both are pretty good.

This EP consists of two tracks, and fourteen minutes of music, from this post-rock quartet. Their second full-length is due out sometime this year, and it isn’t clear whether these two tracks are on that album. They were a pretty standard post-rock group from what I remember of their debut album, which I quite liked. These new tracks are really more ambient than anything on that album, with a lot of murky static that really clouds the mix. I really liked the jazzy rhythms and the almost math-rock guitar melodies on their self-titled, so I hope those aren’t completely gone on the upcoming album. What they do really well on these new tracks is use the hazy ambiance to muffle what’s going on. You can hear different tones ring out underneath the droning atmosphere that hovers over everything. Throughout the first track, “Rituals,” I kept getting the feeling that notes were about to bubble up to the surface, but they didn’t really do so until about halfway through the nine-minute track when you hear strings and soft percussion poking its head through the haze. The band does a good job of justifying their song lengths—a distinct linear progression can be heard on both songs—far from simply creating some pretty guitar sounds, the music starts somewhere and winds up somewhere different. The other song, “Woven Tears” has a more lively drum beat but turns up the noise, giving the song a dark, mechanical feel. It’s hard to get too excited or disappointed by a two-song teaser for an upcoming album. If these songs are any indication, I’d have to recommend the first album more highly to post-rock fans.