This Specific Dream - Ohm
Rating
RIYL
King CrimsonMogwai
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Neurosis
Tulsa Drone
Tracklist
1) The Ark2) Cicada
3) A Slight Intermission
4) Mode Seven
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Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, This Specific Dream is an instrumental rock band that seemingly loves to go off on tangents. On their latest album, Ohm, This Specific Dream sound like two bands in one: one that loves to noodle, going off on “psychedelic” tangents at times for no purpose other than for the joy of noodling, and another that plays pretty straightforward and familiar post-rock. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a band to jump between styles, however it only works when the transitions are seamless and the deviations are worthy of causing a stylistic change.
On the first track “The Ark,” This Specific Dream starts off with quickly repeated bass and guitar patterns reminiscent of Tulsa Drone, creating tension that builds up into a Mogwai-like distorted wall of sound. After the usual post-rock build-and-release technique the band strays off into a strange territory. No longer are any rock instruments present. Instead, we have these twinkly electronics that sound something like phasers on the Millennium Falcon for the next few minutes. The transition between the rock segment and the electronics isn’t bad, but you begin to wonder “why am I listening to this?” The deviation seems unworthy of the transition, and its unworthiness is only heightened when the continuing phasers don’t make much of an addition when the rock action comes back. Rather, it makes the whole song sound unfocused.
The second song, “Cicada”, is the best on the album because all the noodling actually serves a purpose; the two meandering sections in the first half of the song help build up the crescendos rather than becoming completely tangential. After the second swell at around the 13:30 mark, the song goes into completely new territory. Before, every time the band would begin to rock out, they would get heavy and sound like a Neurosis / Mogwai hybrid (as in a sludgy wall of sound.) But here, the band’s softer side comes out and they bust out a really familiar, yet undoubtedly endearing, post-rock segment of slowly building guitars that burst into tremolos of jubilee. Every time I hear this portion of the song, I feel as if I have heard this somewhere before, but I can’t put my finger on it – it just sounds very familiar. This isn’t the only point in the album when this occurs. The ending of the last track, “Mode Seven,” with it’s bass pattern and glockenspiel sounds eerily reminiscent to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s “Moya.”
I applaud This Specific Dream for trying to experiment and mixing up their sound. However, half the time Ohm seems unfocused and the other half sounds like contrived post-rock. So in the end, check this album out if you want something to listen to while you wait for the next Sickoakes album to come out.
Armand Babian
Comments
Minnesota
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Los Angeles
"Decoy Music(not flattering, but he does manage to relate our record to the millenium falcon, which is awesome if taken out of context. which i will do. awesome.)"
haha, awesome.
postrockpaperscissors