City of Ships - Look What God Did To Us
Rating
RIYL
ThriceConstants
Rosetta
Release Date
07/21/2009
Label
Sound Study RecordingsTracklist
1. Wraiths In Flight2. Spring Tiger
3. Praise Feeder
4. Grand Contour
5. March Of The Slaves
6. Welcome To Earth
7. Silver Anniversary
8. Complacent In The Nest
9. Grandfather Paradox
10. The Star In The East
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City of Ships’ first full-length, provocatively titled Look What God Did To Us, is a loud order to shut up and listen groaned in ten different segments. It’s an avant-garde look at what a fusion of post-hardcore and post-rock could produce if executed properly, and, also in the process, a re-introduction of a still largely unknown musical niche the band would do well to fine-tune in years to come. Now everybody knows projects like these are hit-or-miss; melding genres together is a tricky business and so many Frankensteins have come up short, but thankfully City of Ships’ brand is a largely successful combination.
The album plays like a whale. It’s a slow-moving beast, with heavy riffs crashing at mid-tempo, intensely gargantuan bass lines ascending and descending, and wailing vocals that collapse into Bronchitic rasp-screams. Look What God Did To Us ultimately sounds like a thicker and modified Thrice, capable of meeting both supporters and naysayers of the Orange County group halfway in dark and brooding flair. Envision the hard-hitting segments of Vheissu boiling with the space-out grooves of Boston’s Constants in a delicious pan of precision and technicality. There is nothing musically happy-go-lucky about it; even when the progression in “Grand Contour” seems like it’s approaching major key territory, it immediately shrouds itself in dissonant ominousness, proving that this is all aphotic solemnity, all the time.
Even the track titles reflect the content’s Mordor-evoking grimness. “March of the Slaves” begins with lifeless singing tracing an inharmonious melody, and it moans about “[clawing] each other’s eyes out” and how “my back is broken / my spirit close behind.” “Grandfather Paradox” tosses together some sour guitar lines that don’t seem to logically coexist at first listen in a relatively library-quiet post-rock number. “Wraiths In Flight” is a spooky creation that whispers in with hushed vocals before gliding into agonized screams and Godzilla-gigantic instrumentation.
Driving jam “Welcome To Earth” is sure to have fans requesting its oscillating guitars and potential sing-along, “And we will always be here!” at intimate club shows. The epic “ohh’s” of “Spring Tiger” and the drums-led rock-out session of “Praise Feeder” will inevitably follow close behind, though “The Star In The East’s” math-rocky knee-jerk wildness dominates them all. “He bites with fury and he’s coming for you,” warns the apocalyptic closer. Though it’s not exactly clear what is coming for you, the vocal delivery is urgent enough so that the reaction is not “what is coming for me?” but “how can I get to safety?”
And it’s all good, clean fun. Look What God Did To Us has enough mosh for the inebriated adrenaline junkies and enough technicality for the complexity-fed heavy music hipsters. It’s the sound of a band that has added the right chemicals to the right beakers in a project of scientific scene success, producing an album of enormous strength. Sure, you can argue that with all the drabness and monotony intended for effect that the result is a little mundane, but hey - there’s no rule that the whole album must be listened to in one sitting. With each song being so pummeling and captivating, there can be no harm in taking the record for a spin – try it, you’re sure to find it a rather invigorating potion.
--Matthew Tsai
Comments
San Jose, CA
This is my album of the year right now. Soooooo good.
last.fm/user/thetsaiguy
I've been meaning to check this out, nice review.
And why would your album of the year get 4 stars? Seems like it would at least deserve 4.5 if you felt that way.
San Jose, CA
I was trying to be as objective as possible when giving it 4/5. Subjectively, it'd probably be a 4.5.
last.fm/user/thetsaiguy
Dubuque
Being objective is so last year.
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Lehigh Valley, PA
Never listened to these guys before this. Not bad, not bad at all.
Milwaukee, WI
Wow, I really like what I hear so far. I couldn't get into Constants, but this sounds much better. I'm going to have to check it out.
Claremont, CA
yea, i got my hands on their previous EPs yesterday and rocked out allll day to them...good shit. got this new album lastnight, so going to give it a good spin this afternoon in the lab. whoo.
haha, just read this line in the review: It’s the sound of a band that has added the right chemicals to the
right beakers in a project of scientific scene success, producing an
album of enormous strength. which will hopefully be how my afternoon in the microfluidics lab will turn out...