Aestra19

Spiderland continues to deeply confound today, 25 years on.

No other music has even remotely approached the sound of Slint.

Among the definitive attributes of Radiohead in previous iterations has been an uncanny ability to reinvent their work and colonize new territory. That said, their latest LP comes up short, heavily reliant on existing composition. Tuned and polished as they may be, the tracks on disc are unfortunately far too subdued, never charged with enough excitement to soar, trapped in a milky glaze of slight conviction and half measures.

There is no absence of quality, instead a band resting on laurels.

Defiantly elusive with an operational twist in composition, The Glowing Man finds the band at a liminal stage. The album reads as a transitory period both viciously potent yet soft and viscous, equally meshing the volume and violence of Swans with extended passages of motorik rhythms. Gira channels the fortitude of the band in new reflection.

Chords continue to strike a match in the thrall of monolithic noise, but often swell into sparse riffs and loose percussion. First class bass ... read more

Henry Laufer makes a brazen return with Dark Red in a bold turn of reinvention. Channeled especially well is the drone and metal influence that peeks through the veneer in gauzy, frenetic loops of deteriorating synth riffs.

Some songs, at first glance, fade into the furrowed brow of Laufer's anguish, but a pervasive atmosphere ably compensates for any loss of immediacy.

It's a big, black, moody mess that penetrates and proficiently probes the listener.