Mouthus - Saw A Halo (Load)
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
Every track on Saw A Halo might achieve a similar effect, but that effect is always arrived at through very different means. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what it is the songs here have in common, but there's something at the heart of this music that makes all the composing elements of the album seem like they're driving at the same thing. Yet rather than this making the LP boring or repetitive, the unity of the sound is one of the strongest qualities to it. It's a very specific album, but not in a generic or unimaginative, or at all lazy way.
A good example of this comes in the first couple of tracks, the campfire style acoustic strumming under vocals that build through a sort of circular chant into the second track with it's droning, churning guitars to create a really exciting ascension that seems oddly natural, and yet pleasantly surprising. All three elements - campfire, chanting and churning - are excellently executed. That there is a similarity to the effect of these diverse sounds is really interesting, and seems to be generally due to the cyclic nature of the music, music that seems to be driving you forward forever.
To add to this style of cyclical revolving sound, the tracks all bleed into one another seamlessly, making Saw A Halo sound like one ever evolving eternal force of nature. The band, at times, can sound strangely like Animal Collective in their use of juttering background vocals and unconventional rhythms, although they certainly are not ripping them off and possibly have never listened to them in their lives.
As you might guess, it has a really hypnotic effect, so much so that I'm sure this album is made with a precise intent to hypnotise you. There is a point in 'Century of Divides' when you really don't feel alive in the conventional sense, you just feel like your head is a sort of conduit, full of sound waves and nothing else. And by this point you are ready to go along with whatever Mouthus are going to present to you.
Lucky for you then that Mouthus are a band that have spent a lot of time honing an aesthetic perfectly. There is a sort of glow to this album that fills out the room, but I would only really listen to it either whilst doing something else, or whilst trying to get to sleep, I would certainly never introduce it in to any sort of social situation, however relaxed. It takes quite a lot of rhythmic talent make music like this, to make it rolling enough without being too repetitive is a very particular skill, and it's certainly an arrow that Mouthus have to their bow. Once under close scrutiny you can hear that there's some stuff here that took some thinking that you don't immediately register consciously - just another way in which Saw A Halo could be called hypnotic.
The band show right at the end of the LP that they really know how to do touching, drab sensitivity; 'The Gift Of Sighs' sounds like you would want a song with this title to sound - no, not a dreadful emo song, although I still think the title is questionable as it is a bit corny and also makes you fear the worst. But far from flimsy teenage sentiment, I feel like I am listening to a group of people that have all felt truly crushed within their life time.
Download a legal MP3 of 'Your Far Church' from 'Saw A Halo' HERE.
Artists in this article: Mouthus
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment