steering clear of the mainstream
since 2001

june 2010

review
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info opinion

Apse

"Eras" LP

Equation Records

Genre: experimental rock

Newtown, CT

Mar 19, 2009

Eras is Apse's "unofficial" follow-up to their 2006 breakout album Spirit, which was recently reissued by esteemed label/festival-coordinators All Tomorrow's Parties. In true obsessive obscurist form, it's been released in a beautiful edition of only 425 copies on slick, 180-gram vinyl, replete with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. Collectors, take heed - Equation Records will hook you up.

I will admit I've never actually listened to Spirit, but based on the recommendations of others, I approached this record with high hopes. And, despite it's miniscule pressing, Eras does indeed feel like a polished, complete album. In fact, this is an atmospheric, epic voyage of a record, tightly strung between post-rock, avant-garde, art-rock, and drone music. There are songs here, but there is also so much more - the ecstatic energy of "The Letter," the gloom of "The Gloom"... What makes these songs work isn't their melodies, but their execution. The tracks are carefully interconnected, and there is a natural progression running through them. In fact, Eras is an album perfectly suited for vinyl - each side is a self-contained story, best absorbed in whole. I prefer side B, which begins with a death march before launching into daring, dreamy art-rock followed by dreary Sunday-morning haze. Fans of Animal Collective and Au will find a lot to like here, not so much because Apse sounds like either, but instead because they don't. You get what I mean?

apse's myspace

87%

youuuuuuuutube!: video for "the gloom"

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 14 tracks, distributed by the label, released Feb 14, 2009]