All The Saints
Intro To Fractions

4
...according to our Mike on 24 January 2012.

Bit of a genre-hopper, this one. Opening with a barrage of pummelling shoegazey Kraut-psych that stops dead as the vocals come in only to stomp back in even harder, All The Saints clearly aren’t here to piss about. Over the course of this 13-song album they offer us their own twisted take on indie rock, sometimes dropping down to sinewy minimal jams with dubby bass and ethereal, glassy guitars, sometimes aiming driving Cave-esque motorik psych rock sucker punches straight for your gut. In places the shoegaziness of it kind of makes it sound like if the Stone Roses had balls. Everything here sounds accomplished but you can hear influences coming in from all over the place, it’s kind of like the most recent Girls album in that respect. One of the songs reminds me of that Chemical Brothers song with Noel Gallagher on it...Setting Sun?...It’s like that crossed with latter-era Smashing Pumpkins. In its more psychedelic parts it sounds like Acid Mothers Temple at their most coherent. The psychedelic indie sound brings Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to mind in places, too, and there’s some spiky, spindly noise punk that reminds me of early Liars...all over the shop, basically. Sinister dancey indie/psych rock to walk around feeling like a badass to.

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Sound clips for Intro To Fractions by All The Saints: on vinyl at Norman Records UK. LP, Souterrain Transmissions, SOU023LP, £14.29.

What their label says...

Intro to Fractions works within simple parameters; to examine a ruminative idea over an extended duration, feverishly taunting every gradation from each texture. Suspended on the fringes are lingering melodies forged from the burgeoning tension of three men displaced within their own lives.

In the Spring of 2009, with an air of momentum surrounding a recent acquisition by Touch and Go Records, All the Saints began giving form to ideas translucent, but not transparent to what would later become Intro to Fractions. Recorded at a variety of studios across greater-Atlanta with a certain sense of nomadic pride and assistance from local stalwarts Mike Wright and Cyrus Shahmir, Intro to Fractions bestows upon the listener exactly how much more thoughtful All the Saints have become in their approach since 2008's debut, Fire on Corridor X.
"There wasn't much room for repeating ourselves" explains singer/guitarist Matt Lambert. "You can bury your instruments, your words, in effects forever, but eventually you'll have to say something." While the loosely placed psychedelia the trio established on their predecessor remains, it now takes on a more focused outlook if only to forefront the core theme of Intro to Fractions: balance in an embattled identity.  

An anxious, propulsive rumble, the album's opener "Half Red, Half Way" is never moments from imploding—until it actually does so. Everything seems to be on the line as instruments forfeit and Lambert's disembodied honesty rings outs with "You'll lose your mind and face though, at least it's me. We'll break this honesty code, it's guaranteed."   
The majority of the record's stoic urgency is often founded upon Jim Crook's concise drum work, an asset that allows opportunity for the hulking feedback explorations found on "Preachy" and "Zompire" as well as conversely, moments of direct guitar rock in the album's most forthright effort, "Buster." Washed with a veneer of melancholy, the pulse and projection of Lambert's vocals provides the emotional pull against Jim Titus' wavering bass line: "You spent our wasted summer on drugs and lots of others. A no one, accept from me."

Weaved into the DNA of Intro to Fractions are ever so often respites of escapism that keep the pace of the album dynamic and strengthen the cumulative impact of the other impatiently unfolding compositions. The unwieldy minute-long eruption of drums and yelps, "Danger Flowers," and the cosmic sulking guitar strums of "4H Trip" never overstay their welcome, but certainly compliment the doomed voyage.

TRACKLISTING:

1. Half Red, Half Way 2. Poly Daughters 3. Alteration 4. 4H Trip 5. Host 6. EIO 7. Preachy 8. Danger Flowers
9. Intro to Fractions 10. Sunk Hill 11. Now Boy 12. Buster 13. Zompire