Search - Esmerine :: If Only A Sweet Surrender To The Nights To Come

Gorgeous, minimalist modern chamber rock.

Lord Chimp | Monkey World | 02/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a gem that does not deserve to be obscure in the music world, much less the "post-rock" genre. The music is based around cello and percussion (drumkit and marimba), with other instruments like piano and double-bass (and screeching porch door) filling the sound on different pieces. The liner notes are virtually unreadable, so it's hard to get all the details of who plays what. I know the percussionist is from Godspeed You! Black Emperor.The best post-rock bands are those with an ear for pure sound. Some post-rock is gimmicky and pretentious and it makes the music suffer. Esmerine's success is attributable to the band's empathetic and humble performance -- it is like the music could be no other way, and this group just gave it its voice. The flow is arresting and the music is very moving and beautiful without being too 'pretty' and gutless. Maybe "rock" is a slight misnomer because the music only rocks on the fourth and eighth tracks. There are no guitars and the music is generally hushed, lugubrious minimalism or placid, entrancing drones. Yet the overall sound is nonetheless incredible dynamic and absorbing. "Sweet Surrender Be True" is an utterly gorgeous build-to-crescendo staple, but it never reaches any real level of intensity, only greater and deeper levels of sublime beauty. Maybe "Luna Park" is a throwaway: just a minute and a half of a rusty porch door making a racket as the wind blows it around. It is quite musical in context. I think it makes an effect bridge between the moods of "Sweet Surrender Be True" and the eerie, drunken strings at the beginning of "The Marvelous Engines of Resistance" (which rises to an intense 4/4 chamber-krautrock pound) in any case. If I were you I would buy it."

The most musical 'post-rock'

C. Quinn | County Louth, Eire | 07/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In retrospect it seems inevitable that a band as big as Godspeed You Black Emperor! -- in terms of both personnel and musical ambition -- would have so many offshoots. There was so much different material on F#A#oo and Levez Vos Skinny Fists that it would take numerous bands to develop it all, and Godspeed had the numbers to do it. Interesting also, that subtle name change -- the shift of the exclamation mark from the end to the middle -- on Yanqui U.X.O., the first Godspeed release after the 'side-projects' really took off.



Yanqui U.X.O. itself (and the choice of producer Steve Albini) seemed to stake out slightly more formally conventional guitar/rock territory for the parent group, with A Silver Mt. Zion set to carry on down the crazy preacherman/frazzled folk path and Set Fire to Flames to seek out the more avant-garde noise frontiers of the Godspeed universe. Which, to complete the overly simplistic analysis, leaves Esmerine to expand on the 'contemporary classical' undertones of the first few Godspeed releases.



They do it beautifully, in a series of pieces which, as other reviewers have pointed out, avoid the more familiar 'post-rock' tricks in favour of a suprisingly sophisticated compositional approach. There's less of an improv feel and consequently a greater differentiation between tracks. Yes, there's a hint of Arvo Pärt (as there is with A Silver Mt. Zion), but there's also more than a whiff of Takemitsu or even Bartok. All the playing -- and recording -- is sumptuous without being ostentatiously technical, even the parts where the cello sounds like an overdriven guitar. And 'Where There Is No Love There Is No Justice' shows that Esmerine can rock too.



William Burroughs eventually concluded that any state drugs could get you into, you could get into without them if you knew how. Not sure I agree with that; but anywhere guitars can get you, you can get to without them -- listen to Esmerine if you don't believe me."

Hello cello

dan mach | San Diego, CA United States | 01/20/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"recommended because i couldn't find explosions in the sky. drive long distances to enjoy this.
not as noisy as godspeed but definately in the same class"