DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS – INDUSTRY
The group begin with the first of the record’s Ants trilogy titled Our Last Supper, and it serves as an ideal showcase for newcomers like me as to what their sound entails: eerily quiet and mysterious in timbre, while the spoken words fascinate and keep you intrigued. The chilling ambience trinkles through into Triggers, primarily defined by these haunting synth tones, and it’s a gripping self-assessment into the control we have over our actions.
The second instalment of the Ants series follows – Every Trauma Ever After – a gradual climb from calmness to a string of battling noises, and the added horns contribute a lot. Spectral Kleptomania is really effective in enhancing a vibe of anxiety and paranoia. The speech is particularly skin-crawling and subtly passionate in Drop Brick, and in general it’s perhaps the most unsettling number up until now, truly coming off as an out-of-body experience as the intensity is built up. Dust Ashes features sublimely surreal instrumentals which are joined by a flurry of swishing beats in the latter half.
A Comforting Uncertainty definitely lives up to its namesake in terms of the effect it captures, diving into how people are happy to proceed with the current path in their lives despite how so much harmful negativity will fall upon them as a result, and at last, the finale of the Ants saga comes in the form of The Universe Is Unaware, and it may just be just the best of the trilogy, in which the warping notes and pitches get entrapped in your brain.
The sophomore album from the London trio is a little tricky to put into fully encompassing detail, but it is certainly a pensive and musing listening event that slowly but surely reels you in, whether you’re aware of it or not. Some tracks admittedly could have been cut down as they’ve already gotten the point across long before they have ended, but not much in the way of harm nor foul in that regard.
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