CD Review: O’Brother – “Endless Light” (Triple Crown Records/Favorite Gentleman)

Though there are moments that Endless Light, the third full-length from noise revelers O'Brother, plays out like a plodding lullaby (see the very Thrice-esque “Bloodlines”), it possesses the ability to be downright menacing (“I Am (Become Death”). At its core, Endless Light is a sprawling landscape rife with many peaks and valleys, replete with jangly guitars and jilted harmonies; it’s hazy, subdued and mountainous (“Your Move,” Time Is a Length of Rope”), substantial, sparse and dissonant (“Deconstruct,” “Burn”). O’Brother channels Muse on “Complicated End Times,” complete with frontman Tanner Merritt playing the role of Matt Bellamy fairly well, while the near 8-minute closing entry “Realm of the Physical” fittingly devolves into nothing more than ambient waves of atmospheric sound, finishing out Endless Light much in the same as your sleep sound machine lulls you to sleep at night. Though Endless Light is undoubtedly an expansive record, it never once wanders too far, and even though it’s easy to get lost amongst this smattering of discordant sound, that’s not always a bad thing.

Grade: B-

Go Download: “Deconstruct”