ALBUM REVIEW: Align In Time's debut 'Me & My Arrow' plays post-rock safe, solid
Post-rock, much like melodic hardcore, has seen an increase in worldwide popularity over the past couple years with multiple countries putting out post-rock outfits.
Once again, much like melodic hardcore, this new influx of interest in a genre can lead to a bit of a side effect: saturation.
In response to this, different veins of style have emerged, taking the standard instrumental, delay-heavy, emotionally-striking sounds and filling them with new influences. Some bands add crushing metal influences like Suffocate For F**k’s Sake, others preferring to incorporate post-hardcore structures and vocals into their personal post-rock stew such as Men As Trees, others still like Death By Panda favoring electronic soundscapes.
Composer John Boles, recording under the name Align In Time, takes more of a step back in his post-rock approach. Instead of taking a very large wall-of-sound style, he instead scales the echoing instrumentation back a bit, featuring a pinch more of an alternative rock timbre for Align In Time’s debut release.
“Me & My Arrow” (a title begging for an “arrow to the knee” Skyrim joke) is the seven-track debut of Boles’ efforts in post-rock music-making.
The changes made to the post-rock formula are minute but distinctive when dissecting how the album plays out.
Most noticeably off the bat is that even with the small amount of tracks, standard fare for most of the genre, song lengths themselves are rather short. Most tracks find themselves around the three-, four- or five-minute area, somewhat short for the genre, with the longest song being “The Many Faces” nearly hitting eight minutes.
This ties into more of the alternative rock influence of the album. Instead of spending time creating atmosphere in an almost orchestral manner, Align In Time showcases a more riff-based songwriting.
This by no means entails Boles showing off his guitar chops at the sacrifice of emotional texture, but the songs move more at the pace of the riffs placed in front of them and less on the overall movements the music take as a whole. A quick listen to “Men Without Chests” aurally showcases this point.
This leads to “Me & My Arrow” at times sounding less like a post-rock release and more like an instrumental alternative rock jam. While there is still a focus on atmosphere and emotional texture throughout the songs, it is more buried and listeners expecting a build into a smashing crescendo may not exactly find what they are looking for.
The flipside is this creates a more easily accessible package. Even if you are not a post-rock fan, just about anyone could appreciate what is going on in tracks like “Scarecrow” and “I Can Count All My Bones.”
If you are fresh to the genre or are looking for a more alternative flair to your post-rock, then check out “Me & My Arrow,” but do not go in expecting this album to push the genre through uncharted waters.
Genre: Post-Rock Rating 3.5 stars out of 5
