Sounds Like The End Of The World -
Stories


(CD 2017, 39:21, Progressive Promotion Records PPRCD047)

The tracks:
  1- No Trespassing(5:22)
  2- Walk With Me(6:13)
  3- Breaking The Waves(6:21)
  4- Obsession(4:31)
  5- Faults(5:25)
  6- Outflow(4:00)
  7- Acceptance(3:05)
  8- All Over Again(4:24)


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Sounds Like The End Of The World is not the most accessible name for a band and even without thinking or listening the association to postrock is automatically laid. Why? I don't know, listening to so many bands with strange names, I always try to figure out what kind of music you can expect just by the name of the band. Today I was kinda right. SLTEOTW is a Polish band that formed in 2012 and have already released an independent album; Stages Of Delusion in 2014. However after the recommendation of God Is An Astronaut's Torsten and Niels Kinsella the band was invited to play the Progressive Promotion Festival and made such an impression, the label immediately decided to release their new album on the PPR label.

The quite scarce information tells me that the band underwent some line-up changes in 2015, resulting in the following ensemble; Michael Badecki on bass, Michał Baszuro and Wojciech Kowal on guitar and on drums Tomasz Hoffman. The addition of keyboard player Michał Koziorowski is mentioned on the cover of the album, but not on the SLTEOTW site, so I guess a quartet it is.

After listening to Stories, I quite understand why the band was offered a record deal, SLTEOTW stands for a type of postrock with a delicate groove and lots of diversity within the compositions. Check out Walk With Me and you find a well built song that musically grows while listening. The same goes for a track like Obsession or the final song All Over Again; perfectly built compositions that feature nice melodies and solo's as well as the typical post rock guitar drones. Highlights are the slow Acceptance, which is so minimal, it becomes brilliant. I think Acceptance is THE sample to listen to if you are fan, like myself, of highly technical guitar driven progressive metal. SLTEOTW proves less is sometimes definitely more. Another high is Faults, which has the same relaxed approach, but ends on a high with a close to space rock referring part.

As I wrote before, I understand the feelings of the label manager to sign this promising Polish post rock and beyond band. The diversity makes the music quite accessible, even for people who normally doesn't listen to this type of music. Those are the people I would like to challenge to listen to the album, it's a real treat. For the “common” post rock fan I can only tell you; “there's a new band in town and they are majestic!”

****+ Pedro Bekkers (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen)

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