Review: This Patch of Sky – S/T
Eugene, Oregon-born This Patch of Sky has nothing but scorn for the impatient rock music listeners of the world. This instrumental rock sextet has made a name for themselves with their very slow-paced and cinematic approach to post-rock, which also has a footing in ambient music. After a steady succession of promising EPs and full-lengths from 2011 to 2013, the band came through in August 2014 with a self-titled full-length This Patch of Sky.
The post-rock music that This Patch of Sky produces is more indebted to post-rock of the present rather than the genre’s past. The pacing, sound texturing and clean production is far more reminiscent of bands like This Will Destroy You, Russian Circles and Long Distance Calling rather than it is to genre veterans like Mogwai, Fly Pan Am or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The group’s sound and dynamic is very clean and diligent, and their songs have a very progressive pace throughout that will start out as whisper-quiet and slower than Rolling Stone critics, but will very gradually evolve and crescendo until the song is in-your-face epic and cinematic. This is a formula that This Patch of Sky is all but addicted on their latest full-length, and though this does make for some very compelling tracks, this formula’s ever-presence is not without its shortcomings.
Standing at over 49 minutes long, This Patch of Sky is, above all else, a test of your patience. Every song of the 8 tracks laid out on this LP starts out with a crawling pace, usually only consisting of ambient synths, gently-strummed guitar, or very ethereal cello playing, such as on the brief “Prelude” which opens up the album. These sections are generally very pretty, and evolve seamlessly into these explosive pieces once the tracks get going. While waiting through these very glacially-paced songs can generally be very rewarding and entertaining, especially early on in the LP, on other songs like “Love Is in Beauty and Chaos” and “The Winter Day Is Declining”, the payoffs of these tracks just feel limp and morose, barely elevating the tracks to anything that feels as grandiose and monumental as they should. An overlying crawling quiet-to-epic pace can make for an incredible full-album experience – artists like 65daysofstatic, Tim Hecker and Ben Frost come to mind – but This Patch of Sky doesn’t make for nearly as satisfying and as memorable a listen from beginning to end.
To me, the best songs on This Patch of Sky are the longest ones. Sophomore track “Time Destroys Everything, But Our Foundation Remains” makes excellent use of a flute in the mix of guitar, wintery synths, reverb and soft drums, and the peaks in this song are nothing short of gorgeous. The ten-minute tracks that proceeds it “In the House of Wolves” takes a long time to get started (over five minutes in), but once the track gets going, there are some fantastic bass crescendos, as well as some very otherworldly distorted guitar riffs that are reminiscent of some songs off of Tool’s Ænima. Probably my favourite track off the album is the second-to-last track “And So They Watched Us As the Years Passed Us By”, which makes use of a great Wall of Sound dynamic that sounds like a more introspective version of A Place to Bury Strangers. Tracks like these show This Patch of Sky at their most capable, and it makes me wish that the entire record was as sonically ambitious in their soundscapes as these tracks are.
Woefully, the most underwhelming tracks on this LP are the ones that bookend it. The opener “Prelude” is over three minutes of straight cello and ambient synth, and does little to captivate the listener, like the song that proceeds it does so effortlessly. Meanwhile, although the closer “Wait and Hope” does transition seamlessly and beautifully from “And So They Watched Us As the Years Passed Us By”, this song feels like someone spending over three minutes trying to start a fire, only to just give up unsuccessful as the LP wistfully fades out, and it makes for a stunningly anticlimactic finish. If you give a listen to This Patch of Sky from beginning to end (which, love it or hate it, I think you should do), I recommend starting with “Time Destroys Everything, But Our Foundation Remains” and finishing the LP off with “And So They Watched Us As the Years Passed Us By”, as I find it makes for a more wholly delightful listen.
At the end of the day, This Patch of Sky is a mixed bag through and through. There are a handful of tracks on here that I think are great instrumental post-rock pieces, but for every great song, there’s a song that leaves me out in the cold when it comes to progression, instrumentation and overall interesting musical ideas. If you’re a fan of instrumental post-rock, especially those bands I mentioned roughly 706 words ago, then you’ll probably find a lot of enjoyment in This Patch of Sky’s latest full-length, and I recommend you at least check it out. As for me, there isn’t a lot on This Patch of Sky that I could see myself returning to.
Your friend,
Jess Casebeer
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