Album Review: Analecta - Janus Bifrons
Right from the start Analecta starts their album with some lush sounds and an interesting percussion rhythm a la Tortoise, and I get excited. The music is patient and precise with an underlying intensity, and by the time some dirty guitars and a nice heavy tom beat kick at the end of the first song in I’m hooked.
These songs build wonderfully and while sometimes I find it can get a little “riffy” and start to sound like Thrice or something, but 85% of the time it’s pretty great, and that’s a lot more than a lot of stuff I’ve been hearing lately.
I could do without the poetry jams that happen in There Is Life Here and As The Light Bends And Shifts and Moving To The Beat Of he Unseen, that’s probably my only complaint. Every time it came on I would think REALLY? Again? I just want to listen to the music. Not that it’s bad poetry, it’s just kind of a cheesy, pompous thing to do -- that’s what liner notes are for. The music is vey textured but it gets lost behind the human voice; I’d rather just listen to it than to try to listen to it behind someone talking.
There’s a lot of great parts on this album but I think my favorite part is the end of The Earth Shook And The Sky Turned Black, which is funny, because my least favorite part is the first half of that song. It’s strange how that happens sometimes. Overall this is a very solid release from a very solid band, and I’d be interested in the music this band continues to make.
- Josh "pinky" Pothier
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