Red Sparowes
The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Label: Sargent House
Instrumental rock bands are dealt a tough hand. In our highly verbal, chatter-constant culture, there is the expectation that words will show us the way. Without lyrics to inform, entertain or evoke, listeners are left to make meaning introspectively. This process is actively psychological (“What does this music make me remember?”) as opposed to lyrics-based music, which is reflexively evaluative (“What does she mean by that?”). It is a different – and for some, inaccessible – method of listening. As we rely on lyrics, so too do we rely on those who sing them. In a band like Red Sparowes, there is no face or costume or personality available for ready reference. An instrumental band, then, stands principally on the cohesiveness of vision and mastery of musicianship. A naked place to be, surely, but one that offers the possibility of some complicated, revolutionary stuff.
So with all of those challenges to contend with and the proper listening ears attached, here comes the Red Sparowes new release, The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer. While it doesn’t light the world on fire, it succeeds in all of the ways it should and all of the ways it must as an instrumental work. It is a soundscape deep with layers and textures. It avoids the pitfall of sounding like one long, boring song and instead is representative of a symphonic poem composed of individual, complementary verses. The instrumentation is wise, subtle and well-crafted. It brings smooth emotive content; the listener slips through the record (or perhaps the record slips through the listener) unwittingly. It doesn’t matter if it’s track two or track seven, the location is pleasantly unfixed. The mind wanders, the guitar swells, the record plays…
The Fear Is Excruciating could well be the soundtrack to a bout with seasonal affective disorder or an accompaniment to a drizzly day out on the lake. One keeps expecting a Disintegration-era Robert Smith vocal to poke through the haze but indeed, no voices trespass this gloomy ground. It’s a murky watercolor of a record; the overall impression is deceptively monochromatic despite intricate shadings and dimension. It’s the sonic equivalent of a thousand shades of gray. “A Hail of Bombs,” for example, starts off small and desolate, builds to a full throttle and then recedes to a low tide of calm, all the while echoing the same melodic strain. The major chord foundation of “Giving Birth to Imagined Saviors” lends tacit brightness to the soundscape, like a narrow pink swath of color along a rainy horizon. At an average of six minutes per song, Red Sparowes don’t rush through their explorations and conversely, in shorter compositions (like the pedal-steel driven “In Every Mind”), they smartly resist dragging out a theme so as not to drain it dry.
While it is an expertly assembled concept piece, The Fear is Excruciating is the kind of album that one learns to love in a music-appreciation-class kind of way. There are no hooks here, nothing that rivets you to the music. Of course albums like these are not designed with ADHD appeal, but nevertheless it takes some measure of surrendering to the mood and patience for the genre itself in order to connect with it at all. Don’t expect The Fear is Excruciating to leave you humming – but you may be surprised by the tidemarks it leaves through casual absorption.
by Stacey Pavlick
