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”
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