Rare Form
Six Months In Hiding
(Self-Release)
With an album title like Six Months In Hiding, I expect something conceptually dense out of experimental outfit, Rare Form. I expect something, well, rare.
The seven-track album by the California two-piece is a carefully crafted blend of electronic soundscapes, dark ambient and post rock. You wouldn’t be wrong if you found yourself picking up hints of Explosions In The Sky or Mogwai’s fierce guitar work in the mix. The album is expertly produced, leaning heavily on collaborative songwriting, a staggered variety of track lengths, ranging from the six-minute “Jailbait” to the sprawling twenty-plus minute, “The Road To Awe”.
The band’s use of drone guitars plays well against the deeper background synthesizers and atmosphere. Rare Form stays steer clear of some traps. They don’t overuse clichéd movie or spoken word samples, except a few times to give voice to the seemingly core idea “all flesh decays” that makes my imagination race around what’s happening in that half of a year.
In the end, after multiple in-depth listens to the tracks on Six Months In Hiding, I found the record mostly satisfying. There was relentlessness in the sound. The band’s use of minimalism and their shoe gaze touches, all added up to a compelling listen.
What was missing for me in the end though, was a payoff of that core concept, that idea of extended isolation that ends up being a tease. The industrial/buzz motif that exists on earlier tracks comes off as too busy as it cycles back, the disembodied female vocals aren’t exactly unique. Songs predictably build into their hard rock crescendos and fall away on cue. At times, it feels like seven songs instead of a cohesive album.
On the merits of it’s musicality, I loved Six Months but where the core concept was taken, I’d love to feel this record take another tick up, or down, as it may.
Purchase Six Months In Hiding here.
