Send "Red Sparowes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Bbc |
 In 2005, Red Sparowes released a truly transcendent album in At the Soundless Dawn. This, their third effort, finds them still attempting to top it. 2006’s Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun clearly wasn’t up to the task, and although they’ve had time aplenty to formulate a suitably epic response, it’s still not quite enough. Finding the elusive something to go one better than the perfectly formed …Dawn may in the end prove impossible. Maybe that’s just the way it’s meant to beIn its own right, The Fear… is an impressive piece of work. As inevitable as comparisons with their previous creations are, they shouldn’t detract from what is by anyone else’s standards a major achievement. Post-rock is a decidedly nebulous genre, but Red Sparowes find themselves loosely aligned with the likes of Pelican and Isis (of whom guitarist Bryant Clifford Meyer is also a member). Atmospheric, evocative and often cerebral, it’s both the perfect soundtrack to and the antidote for the tumultuous times we live in. As always, it’s a solely instrumental soundscape, substituting the subtleties of tweaks in tonal colour and volume for the overt gestures and statements more usually associated with rock vocalists. The end result is a seamless sonic journey across terrain both bleak and beautiful. The chiming, jangly guitars of Meyer and Emma Ruth Rundle lend the sound a maudlin, shoe-gazey quality of which The Cure or The Chameleons would have been proud. The familiar but effective tactics of tension and release at times take them into territory which Gothic rockers Fields of the Nephilim eventually found themselves traversing. Specifically, on the influential Elizium album, which itself drew heavily on Pink Floyd’s skyward tendencies, which are also echoed here....full text |
| Popmatters |
| It starts with a whisper: A heavily delayed guitar fills the sonic floor, swells and echoes and reverberates, and soon the room is filled with crashing, triumphant drums and double-tracked guitars aiming for the heavens. But just when you think the song is going to lift off into such a stratosphere, it cuts out, and is almost immediately replaced with a near-funk bassline and subtle drums. One soon ascertains, in the course of the next 43 minutes, that the utmost tenant of Red Sparowes 2.0 is to expect the unexpected. The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer (*exhale*) is the Sparowes’ third full-length. It finds the Los Angeles band going bigger, more epic, and a bit more metal, which isn’t surprising given the gang’s ‘six degrees of post rock’ connections to sister groups like Halifax Pier and Isis. The crushing three-guitar lineup of Bryant Clifford Meyer, Emma Ruth Rundle and Andy Arahood means the layers here are piled high, very high, while the comfortable muscle of the Craig Burns/David Clifford rhythm section remains airtight and lethal, one of the best bass-and-drums duos in the post-rock game. But what really shines here is the new, welcome fullness of the production, courtesy of Melvins/Tool producer Toshi Kasai. This is Sparowes in widescreen, and it brings the band to a level previously unimaginable....full text |
| Thephoenix |
| Post-rock bands are like silent-film actors — bereft of words, they tend to use broad gestures to ensure that you get the point. Such histrionics have become rote (Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed), but Red Sparowes show that even subtle distinctions can add spark to the formula. Their third conspicuously titled full-length is by no means a revolution, though it does propose a few minor refinements. Led by Bryant Meyer of Isis, the Sparowes incorporate a metal-inspired background on “A Swarm” and “A Hail of Bombs” while leaving room for more intricate pieces (“In Every Mind”) that could easily be used to score a television show about high-school football. Greg Burns of Halifax Pier is the saving grace; his pedal-steel guitar slides eerily through “Giving Birth to Imagined Saviors,” the echo-laden notes piercing the drone like the despairing sonar ping of a sinking submarine. “In Illusions of Order” takes a powerful shot at epic status; the melodic surge of the closing minute is expertly designed to sweep listeners off their feet. Red Sparowes can’t shake the post-rock stereotype — but occasionally they do point the way forward....full text |
Red Sparowes lyrics
