This Will Destroy You

In any relationship, it’s often what’s not said that lingers longest, taken from an encounter and rendered indelible. Texan four-piece This Will Destroy You realise this better than most instrumental outfits, peppering their material with dialogue that’s no slave to language, to vowels and tongues. It’s communication without bounds, expressive and emotive and, most importantly of all, highly memorable.

Tunnel Blanket is the group’s second long-player. It follows a well-received eponymous debut of 2008, a record that earned the band many an attractive comparison to post-rockers who, for the sake of the past being just that, will remain nameless here. But to This Will Destroy You – founding guitarists Chris King and Jeremy Galindo, bassist Donovan Jones and drummer Alex Bhore – the parallels were not so welcomed. Their sound world was theirs alone to inhabit, any coincidences just that. So, for album two, a new direction was inevitable, ties binding them to any scene tossed and forgotten.

Recorded with John Congleton (Black Mountain, Bill Callahan, Modest Mouse), Tunnel Blanket’s eight tracks can be heard as movements in a single work – each constituent as important to the overall ebb and flow of proceedings as any other. Within each a certain beauty is manifested, one born of a desire to step free from common pigeonholes and into a realm where parallels are, at best, fleeting: a glimpse of Fennesz here, of Stars of the Lid in the record’s more serene passages. Brian Eno’s Apollo album may come to mind on a couple of occasions. What Tunnel Blanket categorically is not, however, is a release that shares its genes with anything that could be deemed typically post-rock in structure. The builds here keep building; the breaks are permanent. Listen and it’s like the guitars are singing out a paean to the endless space above, celebrating the primal splendour of the unexplored dark.

Listen, closer, and everything becomes clear. No words, just sound; patterns and phrases, but no chorus, nothing approaching a standard rock motif. But communication is absolute and enduring, Tunnel Blanket’s message evident. Dare to disengage with what is perceived as convention and the rewards are manifold. And the listener is sure to carry them for no little time.

RIYL: Explosions In The Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mono
TRY: #6, 7, 1

Full Album Available Here:
https://www.piratepirate.com/downloads/

More Info Here:
http://twdy.tumblr.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thiswilldestroyyou
http://www.facebook.com/thiswilldestroyyou
http://www.last.fm/music/This+Will+Destroy+You
http://www.punknews.org/bands/thiswilldestroyyou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Will_Destroy_You
http://suicidesqueezerecords.tumblr.com/