Racing Glaciers - Ahead Of You Forever [2014] [EP][WEB/FLAC]

FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue
Label/Cat#: Self released
Country: UK
Year: 02 February 2014
Genre: alternative baroque pop folk
Format: CD,Album


01. Ahead Of You Forever 01:45
02. New Country 03:17
03. Moths 04:04
04. One Day We Will Lose Everything 04:52
05. The Falls 04:06
06. Wake 05:50




Racing glaciers. An interesting concept, to say the least. The patience one would need in order to really document, or even experience, a race between two glaciers… well, suffice it to say that this guy doesn’t have it. Maybe the five guys that make up Racing Glaciers have that kind of patience. Or perhaps they strive for it. Or do they want to be those racing glaciers? Literal interpretations of likely figurative language aside, there is something… arctic, about the music that this group of gents is making. It has that extreme north chill in its soul, though the group is from Macclesfield and the album art is out of Hawai’i. But beyond the idea of dense masses of ice dueling it out, or opposing climates, what won me over about Racing Glaciers was their instrumentation.
The title track, weighing in at just under two minutes is at times quaint and lovely and at times raw and powerful. And I know, you’re thinking how, in a song that is so short is so much accomplished? The instrumentation. Building quickly from some ambient pad work and acoustic guitar into a driving drum and trumpet beat and then resolving back into a soft outro, the tune is everything that an intro should be.
“New Country” follows, borrowing on the rock-gaze fusion that has been made popular by artists like M83. Though Racing Glaciers leans a little more heavily on the rock side of things, filling the track with crashes and explosive percussion and wailing electric guitars, the vocals and pad work still have that gazey feel. And there is a definite UK tone in the lyrics and melodies — a quiet violence and melodic patterns that sit somewhere between sadness and angst.
In contrast to the title track, which features a smooth emotional curve, “One Day We Will Lose Everything” is a roller coaster ride of emotion and energy. The lyrics convey many ideas and themes despite their relative brevity. Loss, confusion, denial — the gang’s all here, and the instrumental variation does a fine job of relating to the lyrics and the feelings brought about by the situation in question. The end of the track is brutal; you know the feeling when you feel like you’re just going to explode out of your body? Yeah, it’s that, but in music.
Racing Glaciers closes with perhaps the only tune more emotional than “One Day We Will Lose Everything”, “Wake” confronts many of the same emotions as its cousin, but in a vastly different manner. The confusion from “One Day” is replaced by a feeling of acceptance, which ends up resulting in a track that is softer and more withdrawn. The power and energy are still there, but remain veiled until the last minute or so, when the track finally opens up. Perhaps this is the kind of patience that comes with the whole glaciers racing thing.
In a cool Q&A over at The Big Issue in the North, the band’s frontman Tim Monaghan states that Racing Glaciers is “still just starting to find out who we are as a band”, and I think it’s refreshing and inspiring to hear a group talk about themselves in such a way. Too often, musicians paint some amazing picture of their inspirations and influences, as if to say: I know exactly what I’m doing all the time, when really, nothing is farther from the truth. Music is (and should be) about experimentation and not always knowing the direction in which things are heading, and to see a group with enough confidence to acknowledge that is, well, nice. With two solid EPs down, Racing Glaciers are making a well-deserved name for themselves and their brand of atmospheric alt rock.