Last album ‘Phase IV’ from this Viennese based project really seemed to speak to me with its mixture of post rock and industrial rooted numbers. They were all of a lengthy running time and sprawled like soundscapes over wide vistas. So, with a new album turning up and some interesting choices of remixers included I was keen to dip in and see if ‘Whiteout’ was going to have a similar effect.
The ruined world of the cover art and sombre piano tone that opens proceedings over the title track bode well and I am set up for a bleak and cold post-apocalyptic journey, one that had me considering Cormac McCarthy’s The Road on last venture. There’s a weary trudge about this lightened by eventual shimmering guitar lines and vocals that are more harsh whispers in the background. Suddenly it bursts into life and gives that industrial edge which has a more recent Nine Inch Nails vibe about it. Over repeated listens however I have found this section of the album to be the most abrasive part of it and industrial elements on the whole here have been replaced by much subtler electronica. There’s a cool arid desert kind of post-punk twang residing on ‘Severance’ and melody sounding like its enforced by xylophone is strong as it draws you in over slow beat. For some reason as the track develops and shortly before the rasping vocals join in it sounds like a beeping noise, a bit like a reversing lorry would make is thrown in the mix. Its right low but it really intrudes through whatever sonic sorcery is used in my right ear and I cannot shift it out making any attempt to like the song afterwards. If it is a mixing mistake, it should have been filtered out, if not it’s a terrible idea; song ruined and skip button necessary breaking up the flow of the album.
The post rock staple of sampled voice over calm musical flow is trotted out over ‘Least Said, Soonest Mended’, it works well as does the electronic sounding drum beat and chanted vocals. The guitars float and drift and it is a gentle floating mood inducing number. That xylophone really is the secret weapon here again. And so our journey continues with many of the same motifs utilised into new forms via twanging guitars, slow bouncing beats and a hazy drift of languid motion. This is more enjoyable I have found as background music than anything of major substance. Vocals seem incidental through the most part, we get spoken word parts at times, some in what sound like Germanic adding intrigue and on ‘Unhinged’ a clean airy chanted passage that for some reason has me thinking of Leftfield as much as anything else. Final track ‘What A Time To Be Alive’ is a lengthy slow shoegazing denouement but if there is a tale to the narrative here to be interpreted, I am afraid I lost it quite some time ago.
As mentioned, there are remixes of two numbers one by Lustmord and the other by Jarboe. I would love to say they add to the originals, perhaps they actually take away from them if anything. Apart from the fact Lustmord dubs up ‘Unhinged’ there is nothing really that sticks out and they strike as superfluous to an already fairly long and repetitive album.
Obviously, this didn’t have quite the same impact as its predecessor for me which is a shame. Still its certainly not without merit and I’m sure others will find themselves really enjoying this mesmerising cinematic listening experience.
(6.5/10 Pete Woods)
