The Heritage Orchestra- The Heritage Orchestra

4.5/5

Heritage, something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth, refers to many different “somethings”: estates, heirlooms, genetic diseases, but most importantly, traditions. If Tevye did not teach us already, traditions build cultures, yet it is always those who break tradition that we remember. We call it innovation. The aptly named Heritage Orchestra, however, have discovered the key to combining tradition with innovation, pushing boundaries through reverting to old techniques.

First, one must understand that The Heritage Orchestra is truly an orchestra, 45 strong with a deep string section and powerful brass. Mingled inside the orchestral set up lies a jazz rhythm section, with guitar, bass, drums, vibes, keyboards, and other various instruments. Unlike an unbalanced mesh of two completely different styles (e.g. Trans-Siberian Orchestra), this group manages to mix jazz and classical music perfectly, where the modern rhythm section does not dominate the strings or vice versa. They truly play like one group, a remarkable achievement for the wide variety of instruments played at the same time. Under the leadership of Jules Buckley, conductor and composer, as well as co-founder Chris Wheeler, The Heritage Orchestra takes the best young musicians of London and crams them together into a gigantic force thus far unknown to music. The music sounds as much like Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as it does Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat,” (more commonly known as the Napoleon Dynamite dance song). The stunning amount of variety is the album’s strongest point by far.

Obviously, upon listening to their music, The Heritage Orchestra makes more of a live band than a studio band. Mixed with the energetic rhythm section, improvised solos, and beautiful string chorales thrown into the music, they leave a lot open to interpretation. Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that the band actually formed at a club-night event called Heritage, designed to showcase jazz and classical music. Unfortunately, the event ceased in 2005, and the orchestra decided to make the orchestra a full-time job as they set out to record their debut album. The result- six brilliant compositions that fully immerse into the fields that artists like Jaga Jazzist and The Cinematic Orchestra merely touch. Each song is sure to include a gorgeous string and brass chorale section that grows into an acid jazz jam, although sometimes this process is reversed or inverted. Chris Bowden gives an outstanding performance on alto sax in “Mothers and Daughters Now Mothers” and the second movement of “The 1890 Affair”, while Natalie Williams provides her brilliant voice on album centerpiece “Sky Breaks” and “Tell Me Stories.”

To describe the music of The Heritage Orchestra in depth would be redundant. Everything they play has been done before, but no one has combined everything they do quite like this. The overall concepts stun on this album, not the finer details. Certainly a strong debut, The Heritage Orchestra has a rich future ahead of them, even while they keep looking to the past for inspiration.

I Hear Sirens- EP

3/5

When judging anything artistic, whether it is figure skating, marching band, ballroom dancing, or obscure post rock, many cannot balance two hugely important factors: level of performance and level of difficulty. Personally, I believe more in weighing originality and difficulty of repertoire higher than the actual level of performance. I will listen to (and rate higher) more challenging music with a few mistakes over more cliché music played perfectly any day. After all, if artists keep employing the same techniques and creating the same works over and over, are they truly creating art? Yet we must praise those who perfect an already attempted art, for striving to perfection is honorable enough as well, and it is for this reason that the post rock genre continues to thrive. The genre begs for its first truly perfect album, devoid of pretentiousness and senseless filler. Have I Hear Sirens achieved that? No, but their debut EP shows certain promise.

I Hear Sirens continues along the lines of instrumental, guitar-based post rock much like Caspian, This Will Destroy You, and Explosions in the Sky. However, if they can claim any originality, they can claim the contraction of song ideas into more concise nuggets of music, all well executed. In fact, the worst part of the album passes quickly in the first 8 seconds, a pointless fade in of ambient noises that transition awkwardly into the first crushing chord. A wall of distorted guitar and synth, the band’s two melodic weapons, powerfully opens the album musically until the sound masterfully draws back, building to the next climax. Where many bands compose each song with the intention of building to one immense climax, I Hear Sirens knows better. Although shorter than the average post rock song, the band uses more than one climax to make the entire song interesting rather than a constant build that never surprises.

Still, most of the I Hear Sirens EP is fairly predictable. The sound, while full and well-rehearsed, brings nothing new to the table. The distorted guitar picking backed with powerful piano chords might get repetitive, but they sound like true professionals. They use a variety of different structures, such as letting the bass lay out the opening chord progression in “Like a Leaf from a Tree in it’s Dying Season” or the unexpected piano outro of opening song “This Is The Last Time I’ll Say Goodbye.” The biggest surprise, however, comes in the middle of album where vocals suddenly appear at the end of “September Isn't Too Far and I'm Not Sure I'll Return.” Airy and atmospheric, they fit perfectly inside the sound, not too overbearing yet certainly noticeable. The rest of the band lulls in volume and intensity, the last resting point before the push to the end. Despite these slight anomalies throughout the EP, the bulk of the album demonstrates the true strengths of the band. “Everything Was Black and White Except the City Lights” masterfully rises and falls, one of the most perfected demonstrations of guitar post rock of the year. The intense crescendo into the dragged out, huge chord progression shows that a little intensity and vigor doesn’t hurt.

Despite the clichéd sound, song titles, and unoriginal band name (The Receiving End of Sirens?), I Hear Sirens conveys their sound well. Still, the music needs something more to stick out from all the other well-executed post rock. Or maybe they can continue with this sound and perfect it to the point of no return, and the indie world will celebrate, but shouldn’t we ask for more from our music?

Thrice- The Alchemy Index Vol. 1 and 2

4.5/5

From the years 490 to 430 BC, Empedocles walked the earth as one of the smartest men alive and stands today as one of the most important philosophers of all time. Where Pythagoras experimented with right triangles and tuning stringed instruments by fifths, and Democritus proposed a basic template for what today scientists call the atom, Empedocles thought further. Centuries before anyone else, he realized that light travels at a finite speed, invented the concepts of rhetoric, and created a dramatic image of himself inspiring fables and myths based solely on his death. Despite predicting many ideas that turned out true, his most famous contribution to philosophical society is a false theory- the elements of fire, water, earth, and wind. Delivered in epic poem, he presented his formal postulation with On Nature. While not all of the poem survived through time, enough remains to gather some of his most profound ideas. The bulk of his theory stated that all matter is composed of his four elements, a false hypothesis; he extended his argument to more metaphorical applications of his theory. For these endless possibilities, the four elements, now known as the “classical elements,” artists continue to have their own say on the intriguing subject--the latest, Thrice’s Alchemy Index.

Years after Empedocles’ death, Plato and Aristotle created a fifth element, known as either Aether, Idea, or Quintessence. While it physically represents everything outside of the terrestrial atmosphere, it held a much more metaphorical meaning as all that exists outside the material world. Thought, math, and music all fall under the category of Aether. Before looking at The Alchemy Index in-depth, it is important to realize that as Aether surrounds the planet, the overall concept surrounds these two (eventually four) EPs, and they complement each other as much as they contrast each other. The aggression of Fire clashes with the calm tranquility of Water, yet they both follow similar flow and structure. In terms of general atmosphere, both EPs climax at the final song where Dustin Kensrue composes traditional English sonnets for lyrics. “The Flame Deluge,” easily the most brutal, cathartic song of Thrice’s career, connects the two EPs simply with its title, where deluge means flood. Musically, it falls from its incredible climax into a hazy, effect-laden atmosphere that brings in aspects that take prominence in the Water EP. These subtle tie-ins from section to section draw the entire project together, lessening the inevitable abrupt change from fire to water.

Still, Thrice backs up the massive concept with micromanagement inside of their songs, as they obviously spent as much time refining the smaller details as they did drawing out the overall idea. The Fire EP (Volume I) fittingly opens the entire project as the first section of the first release, being the most typical Thrice style. Regardless, Thrice recognized this project as an attempt to push all of their influences to new limits, and even the post-hardcore/metal sound receives some surgical work, albeit minor. “The Messenger” mixes their core sound with electronic drums for the shortest song on the release, while “Backdraft” grows the most organically, evolving from drones, a drum beat, and a dissonant acoustic guitar melody to a huge chorus that remains catchy yet off-kilter and mathy at the same time. Fire continues along the lines of Vheissu’s “Hold Fast Hope” and “Like Moths to Flame”- very riff oriented with wacky time signatures - yet despite the heaviness, the material maintains a semblance of melody and musicality. “Burn the Fleet” brings some much-needed variety with a less complex and more tuneful style. Although its progression from verse to chorus is predictable, it fits perfectly and sounds completely different from the rest of the Fire section. The anthemic vocals “Burn the fleet/We’ll be heroes or ghosts/But we’ll never be turned around” cause one of the most memorable moments of the EP. From the aggressive “Firebreather” to the crushing “The Flame Deluge”, Fire transitions Thrice’s listeners from the old material to the new by keeping their core sound and giving previews for the sounds upon which Water expands.

Volume II (Water) completely inverts the formula of Volume I as electronica takes, making guitar secondary, and it reaps incredible rewards for the band. Songs like “Atlantic” timidly walked in this direction, but Water traverses into the land of Radiohead’s Kid A bravely and confidently. Creating the perfect aquatic atmosphere, the EP experiments with more electronic drums, full-song instrumentals, and vocal effects. “Digital Sea” starts off as probably the safest song on the record, a typical electronica song with a catchy chorus. As Dustin sings, “I’m drowning in a digital sea”, the volume rises and engulfs his vocals dramatically, making the mix of lyrical and musical concept come together. This musical style fully develops in “The Whaler”, which contains a more complex and intricate beat pattern and melody. It creates arguably the best section on the album when the song releases all the tension built up by exploding (imploding?) into beautiful vocal harmonies. The bass voice descends while every other voice stays on its first note, ranging from a male falsetto to a regular tenor range. On “Lost Continent” and “Night Driving”, the guitars make a reappearance in secondary roles. The former puts the guitars in a post rock setting, with screaming high notes and quick picking, while the latter uses guitar as climatic effect for the main melody of the song. The only instrumental on the entire EP, “Night Driving” brings the variety to the Water EP. The entire volume’s atmospheric qualities predict great things to come from the next release, proving that Thrice can do more than just post-hardcore.

With the first release of the Alchemy Index, Thrice personifies and transforms the classical elements into a work of art, proving the true capabilities of music and technology. Moreover, the band pushed themselves to their limits, using the project as not only an artistic release but also a catalyst through which they bettered themselves as musicians. The album raises the bar even higher for their releases while leaving endless possibilities for the rest of their career. For now, they seem as dedicated to the elements as Empedocles himself.

To the elements it came from
Everything will return.
Our bodies to earth,
Our blood to water,
Heat to fire,
Breath to air.