Trancelike Void - Where The Trees Can Make It Rain

Genre: Doom

Name: Trancelike Void

Album: Where The Trees Can Make It Rain (2010)

If this EP were a font, it would be Minima Sans Serif

Now, first, let me make one thing clear: I thought that trees did have some affect on precipitation. I still believe that they do, in some weird scientific way, but having been informed by the in-house fashion designer that they don't, I shall admit that I am currently losing this battle.

Onto the music. It is, to say the absolute minimum, minimalist. The bass and vocals have been scrapped, the drum kit has been coated in several layers of cotton wool and there are long periods of silence. However, it is not necessarily bad.

The opening track on this twenty-two-and-a-half minute acoustic journey has a slow, melancholy intro, with pauses, which seems repetitive, but after only one-and-a-quarter minutes you get a new theme. That's right, we've got two now! There are even drums for a while. I know, shocking, right? We then return to the original riff, which isn't actually too dissimilar from the second - it's just slower and missing one note. We then get the second riff again, in another "faster" (speed is relative) section. It is only towards the end of the tenth minute that we are shown a new idea, but we soon return to the second lick once more.

The second, and final track is similar: Within an instant you see where the guitar is going, and it simply repeats itself moving up or down an interval each time. We get a hint at a change after one-and-a-half minutes, but only for an instant, and we get three minutes of the same repeated riff. We get a new idea at 3:45, but after that, I'll admit, my attention wavered a little, and I have no further comments to make. It is just more in the same vein.

Now, don't get me wrong: I did enjoy this. The music is pleasant, if not interesting: it doesn't exactly grab you, and it certainly isn't a "blink and you'll miss it affair". There are no moments that you anticipate for the entire song: no excellent fills, no lyrical twists (no lyrics at all) and no expert guitar playing that leaves you weak at the knees. It's simplistic: there aren't even any chords underneath the melody. It is the music I would use to fall asleep (in the nicest way possible), or perhaps listen to if I needed to think deeply about something.

Having written this review, I did a little research. The Belgian duo that is Trancelike Void have supposedly done four other releases, and this is "an incredible risk for TLV. It's entirely acoustic and considerably less dark in both tone and aesthetic than its predecessors" (Courtesy of Cory from emotionallyvoided.blogspot). It appears that this is unusual for this band, and they perhaps are more prone to heavier music. I shall certainly make sure my opinions are informed, and you can anticipate a review of one of their full length releases in time.

Rating: 6/10
Summary: Peaceful, pleasant but perhaps a trifle plain.

Track Listing:
1. The Stone Pond
2. Ghost Mountain

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