Indeed just what the bogie doctor ordered - 4 slabs of monolithic might from This Et Al. The attending press release doesn’t mince its words stressing that these gems are their ‘finest work to date’ - well they would say that wouldn’t they. But then they do have a point because the four tracks that feature on the ‘figure 8’ set (incidentally pressed on ten inches of wax - just in case you needed any further prod like persuasion) grow unerringly in stature and elegance the further in you go. From the brooding and blistered to the turbulent and tortured This Et Al rampage through the gears crafting out symphonic crescendos of orchestrated attrition, the moods within freewheeling between the anxious and the frenzied (‘figure eight‘) coalescing superbly to the majesty and mercurial (as on the parting ‘(the tale of) frosty Jackson’). Within the crushed landscapes sonic references are acutely honed into an agitated tear stained armoury of harmonic maelstrom that sees them nodding with equal measure towards Radiohead and 50hz. The sore thumb of the set is the opening cut ‘figure eight’ - a ravaged white hot disruption that spurts, cuts and stings with acutely frayed angst - barely breaching the sub two minute ticker tape - this dislocated babe is a mass of frenzied and unravelling attrition rooted to the spot by a snarling and snaking fuzzed up dragster grind after which the aural landscapes from therein settle and transform into something esoteric. ‘medicine hammer’ is sadly the worse for wear on our copy playing wise that is - however from what we can salvage this sweetly bitter beauty coils around an almost hymnal texture steadfastly aced with a cooling simmer like shimmering that soon begins to shed its skin to assume density and tension (before sadly going AWOL due to a CD fault). Alas gremlins aside the wounded ’Ice Age’ tailgates similar trajectories to the much loved i like trains, crafted within wells of obliquely stratospheric hazes there’s an affecting and touching tenderness about its wares numbed with a sense of a unfailing futility that’s soured and dappled with crushed regret. All said and done nothing quite holds a candle to the parting instrumental ’(the tale of) Frosty Jackson’ - an Olympian titan braided with hollowed cascades that sweetly caress and entwine momentarily dispersed by soaring chorus’ of heaven bound sonic pines that cast sky piercing figurines in the star lit voids, a darkly beautiful prime cut of prickling post rock that sounds to these ears like it was whipped from the arse pocket of Workhouse that all at once appears statuesque and seismic - a glorious colossus.

back