FilboidStudge's Full Review: Sworn Eyes by Him (Post Rock)
Another stunning missive from the band HIM, an incestuous broth of Chicago's prof-rock tendency, "Sworn Eyes" offers five brooding, glimmering instrumentals, deep with subterranean electronics which quietly fizz around your ears.
HIM is Chicago resident Doug Sharin's band, but he's accompanied by local scenesters Bundy K. Brown, Rob Mazurek and Jeff Parker. Unsurprisingly, they sound much like Tortoise, whose last album "TNT" contained the xylophone sounds which abound on "Sworn Eyes."
First track 'A Verdict Of Science' is an epic 19 minutes of shifting time signatures, tricksy percussion and phased sound, all rounded up by Rob Mazurek and his trusty cornet.
'Of The Periphery' comes on like a nudist camp house band playing after-hours samba, whilst 'Trace Elements' is a gorgeous electronic waft of wistful melody which actually sounds more like Air than Tortoise.
The title track of the album starts with an extraordinary sound, like a giant church bell being rang backwards, harmonically, through treacle. It's possibly some kind of bass sound. (As opening sounds go, it ranks right up there with the otherworldly clarion call which opens "Praying Mantra (Orb remix)" by Material.) This superb tone continues throughout the song's twelve and a half minutes and forms into a warm, snaking melodic keystone.
There's a lot of attention paid to sounds of phasing between speakers on "Sworn Eyes." It always seems to draw the listener's attention in more when complex drumbeats suddenly swop from speaker to speaker in rapid succession; here, hornlines echo from side to side and sounds flit past like frightened wildlife. "Sworn Eyes" is the latest in a handful of albums by this accomplished hobby-horse collective; perhaps if they spent less time with their fingers in so many pies, they could actually settle down, book more studio time, get in the espressos and create their masterpiece.
One point touching on math-rock/ post-rock/ geek-rock/ prof-rock/ call it what you want (I call it Ethel); why is this such a male-dominated genre? The people who make the music and the people who buy it: not a whiff of oestrogen in the crowd. The number of heterosexuals who 'score' at a post-rock gig must be less than in any other genre, probably including church music.
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