DecoyMusic.com

Sign Up | Login |

Forgot your password?

Logh - North

Rating

RIYL

Desert City Soundtrack
Snow Patrol
Drive Til Morning
Deep Red Sea

Tracklist

1 Saturday Nightmares
2 Weather Island
3 The Invitation
4 All the Trees
5 Death to My Hometown
6 The Black Box
7 Forest Eyes
8 Thieves in the Palace
9 Sometimes
10 A New Hope

Users Rating 1 rating	Your Rating Create an account or log in to rate this album
Recent Ratings
cloudscollide

Before North came across my desktop, I hadn’t actually heard Logh. The group’s prior album artwork struck a familiar chord with me, and they had even worked with producer extraordinaire John Congleton, of The Paper Chase, on their disc The Raging Sun. With all of this in consideration, it was with great expectations that I began to listen to North, the band’s fourth full length and sixth release over all. Despite their credentials and progression over the past five years, most of this Scandinavian four piece’s prior work hasn’t even seen a release in the U.S., The Raging Sun being a prime example of this travesty. Amazon.com described the band’s style as painting a cinematic soundscape of solemn beauty, and for the past week I’ve tried to think of a way to translate that into my own words, but alas, why struggle when the aforementioned perfectly fits the group.

The album opens with “Saturday Nightmares”, a track with gentle vocals atop a melodic, piano driven piece, with ambient drumming and pop sensibilities. The gentle vocals, almost a whisper, carry on a great theme throughout the album’s entirety and provide a strong sense of union from track to track. “Weather Island” follows up the opener as an acoustically led track that continues much as it predecessor, but with a deeper, moodier vibe. The rather quiet track carries an ambient style, slowly building up to the much more upbeat “All the Trees”. The faster tempo on this track sets it apart from its predecessors and begins to build an interesting range for the album, while “The Invitation” proves to be one of the album’s slowest and most ambient selections.

At times on North it is as though the group have shifted the responsibility of interest from themselves onto the listener, some songs reaching a boiling point of ambiance where even the most mature of listeners may suffer a loss of interest. To the band’s credit they do keep most of the song lengths around or near the four minute mark and do make a remarkable amount of progression within that time. The album carries on much as it began at times a bit more up tempo but generally slow and brooding; with emotional, yet reserved, vocals topping off each track. “Thieves in the Palace” is a true highlight of the disc with most the band’s ups and downs captured within one magnificent, eight minute track, which justifies its length with its progression throughout that time. The final two tracks of the album don’t really see the group pulling any tricks out of their hats and, while not entirely necessary to do so, it would have been a welcome addition considering the ambiance with which the album builds its foundation.

While admittedly this review does lack any prior knowledge of the group's sound on earlier works, after many full listens I find myself enjoying the band intermittently, rather than wanting a full listen. The band dabbles in dangerous territory when it comes to ambiance and in many cases it seems that this disc may be valued more for its artistic integrity and individual songs rather than as a complete work. “Saturday Nightmares” and “Thieves in the Palace” are truly enchanting tracks which are proof that Logh is worth your time, it's just up to you to decide how much and how often.

--Josh Tabbia