Caspian - The Four Trees
Rating
RIYL
Explosions in the SkyThis Will Destroy You
Gifts From Enola
Pelican
Mogwai
Tracklist
1. Moksha2. Some Are White Light
3. Sea Lawn
4. Crawlspace
5. Book IX
6. The Dropsonde
7. Brombie
8. Our Breath In Winter
9. The Dove
10. ASA
11. ...Reprise
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Imagine yourself hiking through a forest. You’re walking along and in every direction you look, all you see are trees. Sure, they all look very beautiful and they all have a wonderful scent, but after a while, you get bored from looking at all these trees that just look the same. They all have the same shade of green and they all stand at around the same height and are of about the same thickness. But after much ado you take a wrong turn and end up in a dense patch of shrubbery and thick forestry. At this point, you’re smothered with greenery and have had it up to your neck with this stuff. So you ravage your way through, slashing at trees and chopping branches, just so you can get out of that thickness. But suddenly, one last chop and a forward lunge and you stumble out through the forestry into a vast grassland. In the distance you see something you have never seen before; four heavenly trees standing at right angles like a square. The four trees are immense and absolutely dwarf all the boring trees you had seen before. They are majestic and otherworldly; absolutely beautiful specimens with foliage unlike any other.
In the ever-growing genre of post-rock, Caspian are the four trees. Standing far taller than their contemporaries, Caspian have mastered the art of instrumental rock. With their latest affair, The Four Trees, Caspian does more than just paint a pretty picture on a canvas. Instead, Caspian transfix the listener within the work of art itself, in such a way that you would actually be able to hear the crazy man scream in Edvard Munch’s The Scream or it would be as if you were laying on your back and staring into the heavens as Van Gogh painted The Starry Night by your side.
The quest for The Four Trees embarks with “Moksha,” an Indian term that refers to the liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. “Moksha” begins with a quiet hum blowing like a calm summer breeze unable to lift a leaf into the air until a gentle vibraphone comes in to help. Layers of guitars slide in slowly and add to the intensifying wind. The guitars begin to intermingle with the vibraphone, going back and forth, until the thunderous drums pound their way in as a storm begins to emerge. The guitars explode into a thick shoegazing frenzy and the rain begins to pour, only to soon subside into a drizzle as the guitars play lightly with one another like children caught by surprise in the summer rain. The drums come roaring back and the guitars go wild as the storm comes back for a second round, leaving the children giggling as they run back inside to watch the rain fall down across their windows. Suddenly everything halts but a shimmering lazy guitar, leaving all those who witnessed the event in amazement of what just happened
The second track, “Some are White Light,” is a playful song full of so much youthful vigor that it would inspire the Greek deity Atlas to overcome his eternal fate by lifting the heavens above his shoulders and heaving it into the air. The third track “Sea Lawn” is the result of the tired Atlas lazily laying on the floor and catching his breath as he realizes that his eternal burden is no more.
The next three main tracks, “Crawlspace,” “Book IX,” and “Brombie,” are dark, heavy, beautiful, thick, discordant, organic, chaotic, abrasive, intense, quiet, loud, pummeling, lovely, authentic, enchanting, epic, and PERFECT. Drums march, guitars slide, and cymbals crash. Walls of sound are built and dismantled in a second's notice. The result is more than just music; it’s all the crossroads of life intersecting at one single point to give everything once unknown a meaning and a purpose.
Following these three are “Our Breaths in Winter” and “The Dove,” two beautifully quiet and ambient pieces that deflate the album wonderfully and allow the listener to relax and just stare into the air in awe of all that just took place. Soon to follow is “ASA,” the culmination of the playful summer as you watch the foliage of The Four Trees turn golden brown and blow away in the autumn breeze. Finally we have “Reprise” a quiet little diddy that erupts into a sudden wall of drums and guitars as you make one last attempt to enjoy the summer until its next rebirth.
With The Four Trees, Caspian has raised the bar to create a truly timeless record.
--Armand Babian
Comments
Sheffield
blockbuster
Minnesota
But anyways, this album I thought was pretty good, but didn't find it as outright amazing as many people did. Great stuff, don't get me wrong, but I didn't gizz myself over it.
Find me EVERYWHERE:
AZ
www.myspace.com/arcoftheaurora
Los Angeles
well, not all the post-rock reviews i've done have Explosions in the RIYL, like scraps of tape, pelican, and 65daysofstatic.
But you can't dent that Explosions have had a huge impact on post-rock and you can hear their influence through most bands like Caspian.
postrockpaperscissors
Los Angeles
this is going to make me sound defensive about my review scores, but whatever, i am and i feel that they're all justified
caspian, 4.5 - 2007 album of the year
scraps of tape, 4 - 2nd best post-rock album of the year
65daysofstatic, 4 - 3rd best
gifts from enola, 4 - top 5 of 2006
yndi halda, 4.5 - 2005 album of the year
Mind you, I've given Pelican and Jesu a 2.5 and 3 respectively, so if I feel they suck or are average, I'll let it be known.
Also, the reason why post-rock records get such high scores here, is because we review so few records and the records we review are currently the best and most high profile of the genre. If there was far more coverage of post-rock, you'd see far lower scores given. It's kind of pointless to review unknown shite records and give them 1.5 ratings, when no one was going to listen to that record in the first place. We're better off reviewing the best albums and letting people know about them so they can go check it out, as opposed to writing reviews on crappy bands no one is going to bother with.
postrockpaperscissors
Los Angeles
sorry about that. next time, send it on back and let me know what you think is missing. honestly, i don't mind to getting it sent back for a re-do.
postrockpaperscissors
"These are our lives, but did they ever even matter - are we worth remembering?"
- "Tip The Scales"
Rise Against
Leeds, England
Leeds, England
Minnesota
I'd rather make fun of you in a public arena :)
Actually, it's nothing big. The review is fine, it just felt abrupt at the end.
Find me EVERYWHERE:
St. Louis, MO
~Tom
The Silent Ballet: The very best in instrumental and post-rock reviews and coverage.
Green Brook, NJ
The review is appropriate for a cd like this. Well written, well thought out.
NY/PA
Yeah, it's totally horrible to have to read something as long as a magazine article, I wholly agree. Armand, why are you writing a novel here? Some sort of pictogram would have sufficed.
And what's the deal with admission essays. One page, double-spaced! Who expects someone to read all that junk. My god...
Berlin, Germany
ps: what is up with the links to those paintings...I think we all know them !
Los Angeles
well, just in case.
postrockpaperscissors
AZ
you said it dude!
www.myspace.com/arcoftheaurora
Tucson, AZ
No kidding! I want my reviews to be like Hollywood movie pitches.
"It's like Jaws ... in space!"
Do that for me right now, Armand. No more than 5 or 6 words, that way I don't encounter any complex ideas that make my head hurt.
Los Angeles
Caspian is good. Listen to them.
postrockpaperscissors
Tucson, AZ
Good, now give it to me again with "zaz"
Los Angeles
[William Shatner accent]Caspian. Is Good. Listen to... Them.[/William Shatner accent]
no?
postrockpaperscissors