Artist: Arctic Plateau
Title: On A Sad Sunny Day
Type: Album
Label: Prophecy Productions
Everything that has a modicum of interest about it comes back for a renaissance in latter years. You could even say that about metal itself, having entered the doldrums with nu-metal in the 90s’ it is reborn now with everything from NWOBHM regaining popularity, to thrash, well Earache have seen to that and death, again there is a new breed there triggered and causing bloodshed. It’s not just metal though and one oddity that we probably never expected to get a revival is the gentle and mesmerising tones of shoe-gaze. Taking a look at the 4AD site (undeniably the label that spearheaded it all along with Creation) I see not that many examples of bands that were around when it all took off in the mid 80s.’ Still bands like Ride, Slowdive, Lush and Levitation are getting quoted all over again (in many cases by journalists who never heard them the first time around) and it is evident that the music is popular again and not just in the underground either as My Bloody Valentine proved with recent sell out shows.
Arctic Plateau is a lot gentler than the sonic distortion of MBV but works within the same sort of post-rock, ambient and shoe-gaze frame as all those bands of the past. This is actually a one man project of Italian Gianluca Divirgilio and the album title ‘On A Sad Sunny Day’ is absolutely spot on at describing the sound contained within. It is maudlin but with a glimmer of hope, textured around shimmering guitars and moribund vocals. The artist apparently describes his song craft as “explicitly dreamed music” and that works for me. Not everything is soft and fluffy and with all the instruments working together the soundscape reaches a spiralling peak Metal heads who know nothing about any of the bands mentioned above will possibly find reference points here, especially if they are versed in the works of labels like Peaceville. There are touches of Novembre and the downbeat misery of Katatonia to be found here as well as moments that remind of the excellent acoustic Opeth album especially on the title track itself.
This is not really an album for doing anything particularly energetic to, certainly not for the MP3 player down the gym. In fact with titles such as ‘Iceberg Shoegaze’ you could well imagine an intrepid arctic explorer sitting down and literally chilling out and freezing to death with this as the soundtrack. It’s one to put on in the sunshine really and watch the clouds go rolling by. This touches other genres as it floats by, for instance ‘Coldream’ is like REM jamming with Pink Floyd and Radiohead. I admit that I have not listened to a lot of the bands that this takes me back to for ages and it does kind of make me want to go and blow the dust off some old vinyl. Having said that it’s a retro trip I am not sure if I would go back for except out of curiosity and although I have enjoyed Arctic Plateau as a reviewing experience I am not sure it would get much of a repeated listening to in the future. This is most definitely one for the dreamers out there and I have my head in the clouds far too much to have the music I listen to taking me further out to space. Still sitting on the beach with the sea in front of you and a good book on your lap this would be a perfect soundtrack.
http://www.myspace.com/arcticplateau
http://www.prophecy.cd
Pete Woods
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