Review Summary: A breath of the cleanest, freshest air you can taste.
There is often a fine line between post-rock, modern classical, and ambient. Some artists tiptoe around each, occasionally crossing the border but never really quite forcing themselves to hurdle the leap to the other side. Rather than skulking away from the verge that divides all three, Slow Six confidently dance and vividly parade themselves over the gaps, handstands and all. As musicians, this is a group that knows just what they’re doing, and as such they have no problem adding a little experimentation to their sound to personify its flavour. Luckily, with
Tomorrow Becomes You they never once outstay their welcome despite their musical certainty.
Glorious and elegant, opener “The Night You Left New York” is the perfect invitation to Slow Six’s royal sound. The track builds and builds and builds itself on post-rock foundations, beginning with a modest entrance right before engaging hi-hats and a snare abruptly jump into the mix. Complex yet fluent instrumentation soon rides over the top in a rich 6/4 climax. The focus during this climax is centred around the strings that intertwine with one another, weaving their web of melodious wonder everywhere they can. It’s easy to become tangled up in this network of soaring tones, paralysing you to the core, moving you nowhere, and everywhere at once.
There are two suites on the album, “Cloud Cover” and “Sympathetic Response System” that each come in two parts. The division in both pieces is constructive; breaking what would have been two elongated tracks into more manageable chunks. “Cloud Cover” utilises the band’s more minimalist spectrum beginning with a fairly brooding part that eventually slips into the ambient second half. Slow Six trial their electronic side here, adding restrained radio samples that compliment the soothing aura of the track with perfection. They consistently demonstrate how they can swirl, soar and shimmer at the flick of a song. Hell, maybe right in the middle of a song if they feel like it.
“Sympathetic Response System” exhibits frontman Christopher Tignor’s gentle meddling in electronica once again, adding a flattering burst of energy as if the track is pulsing with its own respiration. It is worth mentioning here that the guitars superbly restrain themselves as a subtlety throughout the album, simply establishing the backdrop of instrumentation in a delicately pretty way. Tignor not only showcases his electronica side on this track, but he also exhibits his truly expert violin playing - once again it is the string instruments that confirm themselves as humble rulers of the album, as the perfectly executed “Sympathetic Response System (part 2)” proves. The track escalates in multiple ascending violins that learn and evolve from one another in a near angelic manner.
The lucidity in
Tomorrow Becomes You is its beating heart. Every rowdy note is struck with a fierce confidence, as every tranquil note is summoned with a charming grace. The result of this of course, is an extremely sincere collection of pieces, with almost every moment fully capable of surrounding the listener in an alluring warmth. Moments like the pizzicato strings in closer “These Rivers Between Us” are evidence that Slow Six are an extremely talented group, but rather than flaunting their exceptional flair they’ve put together an extremely organic contemporary release, that’s unquestionably invigorating, fulfilling and stimulating.
