This Will Destroy You

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Mike on Thu 15 Dec, 2011.

How about that, there's still people out there making post-rock. This is good stuff, too, starting pleasantly enough and then getting a bit crushing with a real dark ambient rumble in the background as the ominous chords and searing high pitched guitar build into a thunderous stew. It's a genre that often is better suited to longer formats but 'Black Dunes' seems perfectly suited to a 7”. On the other side the brilliant Holy Other offer their mix of 'Woman in the Dunes'...I can't figure out if this is a mix of the 'Black Dunes' track on the A side that's been renamed because the mix is unrecognisable from the source material, or if they've got another track called 'Woman in the Dunes' that actually does sound like this. Either way, this mix is totally brilliant, starting with a stuttering little groove based around tiny vocal samples and then morphing into a ghostly techno monster with ethereal synth sweeps and minimal beats and gorgeously understated electronic melodies. My only problem with this mix is that it could go on for much longer without outstaying its welcome, but you've always gotta keep 'em wanting more, right? I just played it three times in a row and I'm only stopping now because I don't want to piss off the rest of the office. The A side would just be a four but the Holy Other mix pushes this 7” up to a comfortable five stars from me.

This Will Destroy You will release a 7" vinyl single of their track 'Black Dunes' from the album 'Tunnel Blanket’ on Monotreme Records (Europe). The B-side is the 'Woman InT he Dunes' remix of the track by Manchester / Berlin-based producer Holy Other. The 7" single will be pressed on 3 different vinyl colours which will be randomly picked and each will also include a 320 kbps digital download of the single. Where parallels are, at best, fleeting: a glimpse of Fennesz here, of Stars of the Lid in the record’s more serene passages. Brian Eno’s Apollo album may come to mind on a couple of occasions. What Tunnel Blanket categorically is not, however, is a release that shares its genes with anything that could be deemed typically post-rock in structure. The builds here keep building; the breaks are permanent. Listen and it’s like the guitars are singing out a paean to the endless space above, celebrating the primal splendour of the unexplored dark. Listen, closer, and everything becomes clear. No words, just sound; patterns and phrases, but no chorus, nothing approaching a standard rock motif. But communication is absolute and enduring, Tunnel Blanket’s message evident. Dare to disengage with what is perceived as convention and the rewards are manifold. And the listener is sure to carry them for no little time.