Music Is My Weapon

Like fine wine, some music takes time.

From the opening minute of Gregor Samsa's 27:36 (titled after the EP's running time and exotically on Luxembourg label Own Records), you know you'll have to wait for the real beauty to begin, and begin it does with Nikki King's haunting pleas.

This is a lullaby of sound (poetically referred to as "trancey-cinematic acoustica"), never quite rising to an urgent crescendo, but instead rising and falling like a gentle rock of the sea. This is music for which those Windows Media Player animations were designed for - the melodies (as do the songs, all untitled, as was their debut EP on Boston's Iodine Recordings) effortlessly blend into one another, and you're taken on a ride of electronic sound, crashing guitar, and light motives.

You may begin listening, tune out, then be struck suddenly by an inexplicable urge to jump into an abyss of sound - don't let the quiet melodies fool you. Long after the album's come to an end, you'll be asking yourself why Gregor Samsa couldn't have titled the record 55:12... er, like their latest release this March on Kora Records. The longer, debut full-length gives you 8 lusciously layered tracks, following off where 27:36 ended, this time with song titles and even a bit more lyrics (which still don't make much sense, so don't expect literary genius here). The ambiance remains, however, to sweep you into dreaming away the afternoon.

Don't expect to download or hear single tracks online; you'll only be short-changing yourself. Here are examples of albums that, start to finish, are clearly designed to take your hand for a journey, and maybe even unwittingly change you, ala The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, from which the band got its name).

But quietly.




FFO: Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, M83