Artist: At The Soundawn
Title: Shifting
Type: Album
Label: Lifeforce Records

The feel to start with is rich and mellow. The exotically-titled “Mudra in Acceptance and Regret” changes direction, launching plaintively into pure Post Doom, increasing in anger and violence, then it stops … minimalist sounds resonate, there’s a Prog ballad and a bit of jazz before it cranks up again. It becomes reflective and Proggy, and there’s a roll of the cymbals. And that’s just the first track. In fact it runs into “7th Moon” which takes us back into the sphere of the Post Doom emotive violence. Strange ambient sounds hang in the air, accompanied by unhealthy breathing – it’s eerie. But it rolls on remorselessly, in this case into a disturbing melancholic and mechanical passage. “Soundscapes” was never a more appropriate word to describe this strange and colourful work. And so it goes on, with the start of a TV nature programme filmed in a barren land to open up “Caofedian”. The slow, emotive sounds lead into a smoothly delivered song before the track takes off again with more anger and despair.

The attraction of “Shifting” is the richness and variety of sounds. To a steady African rhythm, “Drifting Lights” takes a calm route before once again blending into monstrous power. The subsequent riff is bright and addictive as it heads into “Black Waves”. The drama develops as the track gives signs of bursting out and exploding like a volcano. The album succeeds in finding the balance between emotion, power, despair and violence. As the track title might suggest, there’s something disturbing about “Hades”. There’s a distance about the sound. The trumpet cuts into an already quiet track, like a lone man playing at one o’clock in the morning in the corner of a San Franciscan bar. The band are Italian but this album is truly international. This is how it ends. A further shift takes us into “Prometheus Bring Us the Fire”, a piece of emotive Prog mixed with harsh vocals and guitar strains. This track is very effective. The clean vocal chorus line creates great impact. Time then stops. All we hear is the regular “beat” of the guitar, haunting background sounds, and then the power cranks up. The crescendo effect is perhaps a bit formulaic, but there’s too much of interest going on to be critical of this kaleidoscopic work. We’re constantly sent off into another world. Finally there’s another twist as the track descends into the mangled wreckage of an industrial ending.

Here’s how the band summarise “Shifting”: “Shifting is what we live in. It is the unavoidable condition of a movement embracing people, cultures, minds and sounds. From the east to the west and back. We are all shifting. Gathering our thoughts on this condition, we tried to represent us, who we are today. Melting obscure landscapes and oriental impressions with huge streams of guitars’ and jazzy trumpets’ melodies, we shift from apparently fragile sonic architectures to solid super-rock yelling quakes”. “Shifting” is certainly unusual and inventive. To their credit, At The Soundawn pave their own path of ambient Post Doom without fear, and it is all the better for it. This is a very interesting album.

http://www.myspace.com/atthesoundawn
http://www.lifeforcerecords.com
http://www.myspace.com/lifeforcerecords

Andrew Doherty

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