Sloen Archive

From the opening bars of “At the Edge of Reality” you know this album is going to take you on a journey.  It has all the elements of beautiful story-telling post-rock: the atmospheric swells, the forlorn drone notes, the walls of bass and distortion, the intimate clean tones of layered guitar melodies that will tell you small secrets or yell boldly into a hurricane at different times.  All of the instrumentation, and there is a LOT of variety, is in service of immersing you to the summit of multiple epic crescendos.  Strap in, this is a beautifully crafted composition.  

SOUNDS LIKE: Without comparing Sloen to any of these, if you are fans of Mogwai, This will Destroy You, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or God is an Astronaut, you will highly enjoy Sloen’s take on post-rock

FAVORITE TRACK: "The Shape of Things to Come”

THREE FAVORITE MOMENTS:

• The second measure of the breakdown in The Shape of Things to Come (around 3:30) gave me chills.  The build up with the full string section into the heavy half-time is masterfully done, but by the time the second measure hits you get goosebumps.  

• The outro of The Shape of Things to Come (around 4:21) where the punchy clean guitars come back in to determinedly tell an epilogue after what was already an amazing climax is the kind of unconventional song structure that makes it so compelling.  

• The final moments of “For all the days gone”:  I LOVE a full metal breakdown, and this left me wanting more more more, so to end the whole album on that was a stroke of genius since my only choice is to start back from the beginning.