And So I Watch You From Afar
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And So I Watch You From Afar

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"“As emotively atmospheric as it is devastatingly overpowering.”"

They defy pigeonholding and have no respect for your eardrums; Belfast’s And So I Watch You From Afar share their mission statement with Rock Sound.

“Music is number one, we don’t sit around discussing what sort of feeling we intend to evoke or any other new age bullshit with our tunes,” says And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist Rory Friers. “We want to push boundaries with what we’re doing and put across that we care so fucking deeply about the music we produce; we really hope that comes over when you listen to it. Most importantly, we wanna RAWK.”

The Northern Irish four-piece are certainly following this manifesto with their self-titled debut full-length: as emotively atmospheric as it is devastatingly overpowering, it’s an album that demands to be played loud. Although this sonic assualt is administered through largely vocal-free songs, the quartet refuse to be dubbed ‘instrumental’ – and they strongly reject the ‘post-rock’ tag.

“Post-rock is all about building textures and timbres within the music, and when it’d done right it’s incredible; I just think we have too many riffs and changes of tempo to be in that particular bracket,” reasons Rory. “There are some fucking amazing instrumental Fugazi tunes, remember – I don’t think anyone would call those legends post-rock. We certainly wouldn’t.” He adds: “We were borne out of jamming and we have never once stated that we were strictly instrumental – we herded in 40 of our friends from the Northern Ireland scene to record a huge choir on [album track] ‘Don’t Waste Time Doing Things You Hate’, and it turned out amazing, even if we do say so ourselves. Plus, the album is littered with ‘Whoops!’ And ‘Heys!’. Are those the actions of an instrumental band? We think not!”

Given their class, journalistic superlatives should be rightly flying these guys’ way soon, although they have experienced the downside of dealing with suspect media types already. “The most disgusting thing we’ve had to endure while on tour had to be this fraud journalist who turned up at a London show and proceeded to give you lovely people, professional journalists, a bad name,” says Rory. “He stuffed his nose full of coke, drank the majority of our rider, ate our food, didn’t bother watching us and went on to pretend he did, while contradicting himself constantly. He came up to us and said, ‘It was an awful show, nobody was watching’. I interjected and pointed out the place was near capacity, we’d had an amazing reception and went down really well, to which he responded, ‘Yep, it was great, the place was rammed’. The final straw was when he said, ‘Your singer was out of key the whole time!’ Huh?! The guy was an ex-pat from Belfast and also bad-mouthed a lot of people we really respect from home. I think his name was BALLBAG.”

Formed a couple of years ago and with mini-album ‘This Is Our Machine And Nothing Can Stop It’ already under their belts, the band now intend to “tour the fuck out of” their self-titled debut, as they contine to push those boundaries and set about writing album number two. Here’s to the RAWK.

Sounds like: Your most beautiful dreams and worst nightmares spliced and translated via the medium of intense volume

Tim Newbound
© Rock Sound 2009 - Rock Sound


"“The Church of Noise prepares for an Irish reformation - KKKK”"

Newly signed to Atlantic records, Derry's Fighting With Wire already play like they're headlining stadiums. With their melodic grungy crunch and arsenal of big fuck-off choruses it would be a travesty if that dream didn't become destiny. They destroy the capacity crowd who lap it up with a fierce but good natured pit, and the ony downer comes when security start kicking people out for seemingly having too much fun. Any distaste left by the meathead bouncers is soon washed away however, with a flurry of good old fashioned volume and power. With a name like And So I Waych You From Afar, you're going to have to be really bloody good to live it down. As it transpires, the unwieldy monicker's emo connotations are misleading (consider it a creepy statement of stalking, murderous intent instead), as a billowy gust of gut-bothering noise oozes from the instrumental quartet. The splashy, freezer tight drums and nuanced doomy blast gets heads nodding and feet stomping in unison, as suitably endtimes visuals project around the room, adding an extra chilling edge to proceedings. A full 40 minutes later and the jaws agape crowd are baying for an encore. Stirring stuff from a band still somehow unsigned.

KKKK

© Kerrang! 2008 - Kerrang!


"“The sound of someone crashing an oil tanker through Sigur Ros' ice floe - 6/10”"

At some point along the road, post-rock decided to give up the academic pretensions and go dramatic. Belfast's ASIWYFA add a touch of metal so the likes of 'I Capture Castles' start with twinkling guitars and end with the sound of someone crashing an oil tanker through Sigur Ros' ice floe.

6/10 - NME


Discography

Solidarity | Set Guitars to Kill Ltd. 7" 300 | DD

And So I Watch You From Afar | Album | CD | DD

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Bio

Other bands talk about it, And So I Watch You From Afar do it. In 2009, ASIWYFA played a mammoth 170 gigs all over Europe. From extensive tours in the UK to opening Pukkelpop festival in Belgium in front of 4500 captivated people to Novarock festival in Austria, gigs in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia, this is band that mean business.

Their hometown Belfast shows are legendary from the 1,000 capacity headline Christmas homecoming gig in the Ulster Hall right down to a small secret basement party which was shut down by the police late in the night for being too insane.

Everything about ASIWYFA is gargantuan. Their critically-acclaimed, self-titled debut album released in 2009 is exhibit A. From the the iron-clad riffs to the pummelling crash of the cymbals to the palpable positivity of the music, it's everything great rock (never mind just instrumental rock) music should be. Even the song which take in titles like 'Set Guitars To Kill', 'Clench Fists, Grit Teeth... GO!' and the ASIWYFA practice what you preach mantra 'Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate', are epic in scale.

Filled with monstrous guitars, bulging rock histrionics and genuinely breathtaking moments, And So I Watch You from Afar is easily one of the best records of 2009.

Revered music publications like The Quietus ('Quite some distance ahead of the rest of '09's guitar albums so far'), NME ('The sound of someone crashing an oil tanker through Sigur Ros' ice floe'), Kerrang! (' It's rare for a body of work to be so dreamy and elegiac yet conversely monstrously heavy') and Vice ('rescuing the instrumetal ship from the deepest depths of irrevocable mediocrity') all agree.

ASIWYFA are a band that are only going to get bigger and more inspiring. Expect a new EP - The Letters in January 2010 and a second album in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, catch the band's incendiary live show at a venue near you.