The new Siskiyou album is thing of quiet beauty. The Vancouver project by former Great Lake Swimmers members Colin Huebert and Erik Arnesen has become much more fully realized since 2011 second album Keep Away The Dead.
Just the right amount of pressure is applied throughout: Huebert’s vocals are hushed yet beat with intensity the acoustic and the electronic coexist easily arrangements balance spacious simplicity with whorls of sonic miscellanea that pull it open and upward. It’s the perfect soundtrack to that sad, disoriented feeling that comes from looking too long into a profoundly black and starry sky.
Fans of Arcade Fire orch-rock ambition, Lambchop slowness and Destroyer vocal idiosyncrasy will find much to love here, though the band, which also includes drummer Shaunn Watt and bassist/keyboardist Peter Carruthers, is subtler, softer and more intricate than all of the above. Colin Stetson and Owen Pallett contribute to the textural complexity. Oval Window’s vocals get a little too Dan Bejaresque, but then baroque stunner Babylonian Proclivities glides in and erases all comparisons.
What’s on the surface is arresting, but there’s far more to discover deep inside.
Top track: Violent Motion Pictures
