Album of the Week #18.

This Will Destroy You- Young Mountain.

This might be a welcome break for some people from all the heavy stuff but TWDY are one of my fave bands. I’ve seen them live twice now, most recently two weeks ago which I guess has inspired this Album of the Week post. Young Mountain is the first TWDY album that I bought and I can’t remember whether I recommended the band to my boyfriend or visa versa but that’s irrelevant. The album opens with two of my favourite tracks off the album ‘Quiet’ and ‘The World Is Our _____’. ‘Quiet’ is my favourite song on the album I love the way this band mix ethereal, soaring noise with echoing guitars- it’s just stunning. I’d personally describe this music as soundscape but some call it ‘post-rock’ whatever that means. I love the way to songs build up to a crashing crescendo- I find that although some of the songs are haunting and sad, they’re somehow uplifting. I think that these elements of the music give me the same feeling when I hear an awesome beatdown- it’s just gut wrenching and captivating. This band are definitely a fan of what I can only describe as noises- I don’t know how they make them, presumably with crazy guitar effects, but live all you see is a man pressing buttons on a box to make them.

I love the song ‘Grandfather Clock’, its more moody than the other tracks, for want of a better word. This song is a perfect example of how this band use the space between notes so effectively; I know that might sound like a weird thing to say but the emptiness adds so much ambience and space for crazy sounds to fill. The noises on ‘Grandfather Clock’ remind me of a cat purring and cards shuffling. ‘Happiness: We’re All In It Together’ has a beautiful fade-in intro. What stands out on this album for me is how single notes can be so powerful in both guitars and keys. As with all of TWDY’s work, the music is very visual- I often think of rolling hills and open countryside, for me its very nature based.

It feels weird describing this album in terms of tracks as it feels like one long atmospheric composition. I should note that this album is entirely instrumental as are all the musics from this band. I guess this is classed as an EP cause it’s only six tracks long. So in the band there’s two guitarists, a bass player and a drummer and one of them there guys plays keyboards as well. The last two tracks on this album ‘Happiness: We’re All In It Together’ and ‘There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease’ which have a guest violinist featured. The band have two full length albums ‘This Will Destroy You’ (2008) and ‘Tunnel Blanket’ (2011) which are both awesome albums and I’d recommend you check them out too. Overall, this album is beautiful, romantic and inspiring, go check it out.