Red Sparowes - 2005 - At The Soundless Dawn 128

Red Sparowes is one of the post-rock bands of these recent years (2005) that aren'tdoing the same thing as Mogwai, EITS or Godspeed like other clones around. Theymanaged to create a distinct sound on their own, something unique, something great.

The sound of Red Sparowes is very energetic and powerful like metal but without theheavy riffs or the vocals for that matter. Atmospheric like the trademark post-rocksound but with an edge and with alot of drones in the hard sounding places to makeyou feel what they want you to feel at the given song. Now this may sound like adescription to Pelican, but believe me, they sound nothing like them. The guitars inRed Sparowes is the main source of emotion. While one is doing some heavy soundingrythims, the other is making some very emotional playing like in the third track wichis short but I found it the most emotional and accesible song in the album (I playedit to some of my non prog friends and like it alot). The bass isn't left apart eitherdelivering some really great lines like in the second track and it also helps withthe atmosphere. Without it I think they couldn't make those very delicious melodiesor thier unique sound. The drums also put their 2 cents making it very pleasant andnot sounding forced in any way.

Once you hear the first song you'll be sucked into the sheer power of the music ofRed Sparowes.You might notice by the titles of the song that the sound of the albumisn't really happy either. Nothing in the album drags. The soft parts aren't too longand the hard parts aren't every wear. In other words, its well crafted and not asingle note over or under. My only complaint is that the last song doesn't last thatlong. The song is an excellent closer and all, but the end of the song is what ruinsit. The song really lasts 12minutes the others are 3 minutes of silence and the lastminutes of apocaliptc noise or something.

I woudn't call it a masterpiece of progressive rock,(It doesn't have to be amasterpiece to be excellent ya know) but it's one of the best albums I've heard inrecent years and it's one of the most original and best sounding post-rock and progrock albums in recent years also. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars