I dunno ‘bout you guys, but I thought for sure this melodramatic crescendo bullshit was dead by 2001 or, like, 2002 (max). I suppose the current trend toward BIG music (“Hey, rest of Arcade Fire, how can we make the next album bigger?” “Pipe organ.” “Yes.”) ain’t helpin’ none, but a man could dream six and/or five years ago. Those were really the days; I could bank on there being only, like, a 50% chance of orchestral accompaniment for any given CD I may pick up, and there was a chance that choruses might’ve had fewer than three dozen people. But no, friends, now all music has so much soul that it’s soulless. The days of being able to count the number of instruments with your ear are long past. Hell yes. Efterklang, featuring approximately 17% of the entire population of Copenhagen as regular members and an additional 22% of the population in guest/choral spots, are your typical post-rock ensemble in the late aughts. You’ve heard it all before, done better and done half a decade previous. You got the (heart)strings, you got the crescendos, you got the long songs, you got the light electronic touches, you got the technical ‘skill,’ you got the gorgeous melancholy. Anything you could ever ask for. We could go over the individual tracks, but there’s no need to; they’re all the same. Which is interesting considering these songs were “developed as a way for the band to add variety to their sets.” The tracks are musical Ben Stein. There was a time in my life I would’ve been all over this. I loved the over-the-top thing, the huge bands, the slow build. That was a long time ago.
1. Falling Horses
2. Himmelbjerget
3. Hands Playing Butterfly
4. Towards the Bare Hill
5. Jojo
More about: Efterklang
