A few weeks back I got in a terribly excited state upon receiving a package in the mail. Because of the ease of sending out digital promos to music journalists, many record labels have dispensed with sending out actual CDs and thus it’s been a good few years since I have actually received any material goods to review. Hence the smile that came across my face when I found a CD in the package for my possible reviewing pleasure. Planning For Burial is a name that’s new to me but coming from Enemies List Records I really could be getting anything. I read over the press sheet: labels of doom and black metal; “songs that will make your ears bleed” compliments a review printed on the sheet. Not being a huge connoisseur of such genres my apprehension began to rise; heck I was even a little scared at the prospect of what this record might hold.
And my apprehension still lingers at times when I play Leaving. The focus on huge gestures with guitar and feedback make this one of those records that demands to played as loudly as you dare to put your stereo. It’s music that fills the room with a heavy presence making sure that it’s the centre of attention to whoever might be in the room (or the rest of the house). And when those big gestures hit and hit right, the effect is pretty overwhelming.
The problem is though that best kind of hits don’t happen nearly enough. In fact you’ll find the best ones at the front of the record. The sudden change in volume on opening song “Wearing Sadness And Regret Upon Our Faces” might not seem like much when you think about it afterwards but then you remember the tantalizing clicks of static that warn you of its impending arrival and it seems to sound so much better in your head. It might be the warning or it could be the slow wavering guitars it comes from but the rush of noise that comes always gets me. Upping the pace, following track “Memories You’ll Never Feel Again” thrashes about like a shark out of water and the needle-like guitar work only helps drive the force into your gut.
But thrilling moments of this kind aren’t really to be found anywhere else on the record. After the first two tracks the record takes a sluggish turn where one over-zealously titled brash number sounds much like the next. When they are playing they are engaging and have something to offer, like the buzzing growl of “Humming Quietly” or the instrumentation hiding in “Oh Pennsylvania, Your Black Clouds Hang Low,” but when you’re taking the album as a whole the songs that make up the second third come off as an unmemorable mush of noise.
Of course the simple answer to getting rid of that problem is to take the album in smaller segments but there’s just something about letting the whole thing wash over you, making you feel like you’re damaging your hearing for good cause. And part of the reason the album is better taken as a whole is the surprising turn it takes when the final two songs arrive. Penultimate song “Verse/Chorus/Verse” is a slow drawn out number with a backbone of humming organ that’s a change as it is from the material that preceded it but it seems to act more as a settling in for what is about to come. During the last minutes of the song it simmers down from a gentle guitar line to a build of tones that eventually fade out the guitar and starts echoing it until it fades out completely.
And then the title track to the album which turns out to be the wild card: a thirteen minute ambient set of drones. Okay so wild card probably wasn’t the best term but this is where the real juxtaposition of the record lies (as opposed to the glockenspiels playing the same melodies as the guitars on the heavy tracks). The aspect of “Leaving” I find so brilliant is just how surprising it is despite it not being that huge a change when you think about it. The album is filled with numerous drones hiding beneath the gorging and ferocious guitars and thus a song that uses nothing more than a series of slowly sweeping whispering hums repeating themselves really isn’t so shocking. It’s hard to describe a great ambient piece well and the appreciation might just be personal but “Leaving” just seems to have words like “masterful” and “sublime” built in. Simply put it’s one of the best ambient pieces I’ve heard this year and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be put beside work by the likes of Lustmord as another enthusiastic reviewer says on the press sheet.
Thinking about it, it seems the reason this record has made a memorable impression on me is because of the way I’ve been able to play it. Instead of just downloading it and playing on my ipod as I go about my business it instead gets to blare out of my stereo from the CD. When it’s playing it seems wrong to just abandon it but even if you do the sound will force its way into all the other rooms. Leaving might be impressionable at its best moments and blandly overwhelming at the worst but when it’s playing at top volume it’s impossible to ignore and not be a little taken aback by.
