Music
Press
Aerial (Sweden) returns with "The Sentinel", again from No Method, offering up nine tracks and 40 minutes of that sprawling "post-rock" type of angle. This time out the compositions tend to be shorter than those on their debut, also employing a hint more vocals, though it's still a largely instrumental journey that bears something of a cinematic quality to its overall presentation/delivery. The dense, crisp, natural recording works quite nicely to highlight the band's uses of space and layering as the instruments interact - often holding the vocals farther back in the core of the mix - and as expected they've retained a lot of back and forth between dynamics, utilizing gradual transitions to ease the flow. Thick, pulsing basslines weave together with superbly fluid percussive work that blends restrained patterns with tight, rigid bursts; while soft, somber clean passages with the aesthetics of indie rock present a humming sort of brightness. Although, the bulk of the textures and arrangements kind of carry those same "bright" qualities, really - even when things become heavier and more subtly aggressive. And beyond those "aggressive" tendencies lies some rather noisy guitar work that walks a droning sort of line and crosses over into more acerbic territory on occasion. While I'm not a huge fan of that element in most cases, it's a very minor part of the overall approach here, and Aerial very much handles everything they do with a great deal of tact and artistry. There are even some unexpectedly sinister undercurrents from time to time, most notably during the occasional - though infrequent - uses of samples. The disc is housed in a nice, simple little glossy digipack to round things out, making for another pleasant release from the band. Well done. - Aversion online
Aerial’s new album “The sentinel” is so good, it makes me want to cry. If I was in an aspiring post-rock band and I heard this record, I would sell my instuments and quit music. If there’s any album that deserves the adjective “face-melting”, it’s this one. Right out of the gate, it roars like some unholy hybrid of Mono and Emperor crossed with Him Kerosene. Epic barely begins to describe it. Aerial is untouchable.” // Rated 9 of 9 in It’s a Trap - It’s a Trap
Discography
2006 - Black rain from the bombing CD
2007 - The Sentinel CD
2007 - The Legion of dynamic dischord CDEP
2009 - Put it this way in headlines (out september 2009)
Photos
Bio
After five weeks of intense post-production, it's finally time to release the third Aerial full-length album. It will be a fourteen track piece called "Put it this way in Headlines" (a phrase borrowed from the great poet and visionary Allen Ginsberg). The music differs significantly from our earlier works. When we did promotion for our last record (the half hour post-rock experiment called "The Sentinel"), Joakim suddenly decided to go on a trip by himself to Peru. Aerial, in need of a bass playing substitute, called in old friend Niklas Wennerstrand.
We started writing songs together and when Joakim finally returned, Niklas refused to leave.
Aerial, now a quintet, started to sound differently than before. The stagnant post-rock scene seemed more and more uninteresting and the band started to make music in a more playful and unpretentious way. We've never really had a plan in making music, even though we've said so in interviews to look cool and academic, and every step we took led us further away from post-rock and anything related. We started thinking about press-shoots with us killing doves and played more untuned than ever, both mentally and instrumentally.
Some may say we have strolled off in our expression, but in fact this is where Aerial once started off. The Sentinel was the exception, and the new album connects seamlessly to the work we did on "Black Rain from the Bombing" and even earlier adventures. In fact, much of the material on the record is based on riffs and ideas from the BRFTB era.
This is the kind of music we grew up with and that we love.
"Put it this Way in Headlines" also marks a turning point for us in terms of recording. We spent only five days in studio with our good friend Stefan Aronsson, and made all post-production and vocals, synthesizers etc ourselves.
This is the closest to what we want to do with our sound that we have come yet. We hope you..ll like it as much as we do.
Put it this Way in Headlines
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