The Sky Over Your Shoulders
For the present year 2010, especially the latter half, Argentina has been a gentle provider of
great progressive music from outside the European and North American realms, and this
post-rock duo Autumn Moonlight is no exception at all.
AM's debut album has a pre-historic
phase of digital free downloading in 2009 before its official 2010 release: re-recording,
refurbishment and slight modifications in the tracklist determine the reality of "The Sky Over
Your Shoulders" as the world is supposed to know it.
After listening to this album, even if
it's only once, the listener has to ponder and admire the amazing fact that the rhythmic
schemes, orchestral additions, instrumental nuances and varied textures that stand
beyond the guitar/bass guitar inputs have been created via computer tools and programs.
And I'm not saying this as praise for the use of technology in itself but for the use of
technology with such musical depth and such artistic cleverness.
Well, the result is a vividly
embellished sort of post-rock that is patently melodically driven as well as friendly with
some specific patterns of structural pomposity that we usually find connected to the
symphonic prog standard.
Few times like this we find the post-rock pattern so closely
related to the progressive formalities.
Now it's time to focus on the tracklist itself. 'Autumn
Moonlight' gets things started in a most stylish fashion, due to its pristine architecture of
guitar chords and the rhythm duo's controlled dynamics:
while bearing a dominantly
reflective mood, the melodic scheme and the vivid instrumentation bring out a distinctly
optimistic vibe.
The noise of sea waves in the shore paves the way for the second
track, 'Dawn Of Atlantis', whose initial piano motif announces yet another delivery of
crystalline atmospheres and elegantly driven electricity.
The recurrent 7/8 tempo mandates
an effective musical intelligence for the ongoing sense of warmth: this track encapsulates
what I earlier tried to describe as "symphonic-oriented post-rock".
The predominant lyricism
continues to assert itself for track # 3, 'Letters To God', and not only that, it also becomes
increasingly epic: at this point, the band's framework draws a bit closer to the power-ballad
standard that one can expect from a regular prog metal album.
Once the main body's has
been emphasized enough, the basic sonority becomes calmer, which makes the whole
thing turn more ceremonious and introverted.
Now that I casually mentioned the prog-metal
thing, it is fair to say that 'The Outsider' is the track that works on this area more
meticulously: there are also hints to space-rock in its development, but the ballsy nature of
the main riffs and the well-constructed guitar solo leaves no room for confusion regarding
the presence of prog-metal as the central ingredient for this specific track.
Between these
two pieces, 'T.O.R.' delivers a sort of midway between the introspective languidness of the
second half of 'Letters To God' and the opener's colorful lyricism. 'Lost Paradise' is
another example of AM's introspective side, but this time there is nothing about that can
properly be described as languid:
there is an explicit sense of energy and power that is
inevitably instilled in this track's compositional framework, and so the namesake piece is
ready to enter and settle a typical post-rock atmosphere, eerie and subtly adorned. Well, the
album's last 5 minutes are occupied by 'Autumn Moonlight Part II', which deepens the
introspective side that had been reinforced throughout the previous two pieces in order to
generate an amazing crescendo and a subsequent epic climax. This display of bombastic
exquisiteness is followed by a lovely coda that features soft piano and bass guitar
interplaying.
"The Sky Over Your Shoulders" is, first and most of all, a beautiful piece of
artistic rock, and as such, it must serve as a motivator for all prog collectors everywhere to
pay due attention to Autumn Moonlight.
