Worriedaboutsatan Arrivals

The most important post-rock album of all time is Slint’s Spiderland. The best post-rock album of all time is Godspeed You Black Emperor’s! F#A#∞. Mogwai’s Young Team defined the genre and Sigur Ros’ Agaetis Byrjun blew the lid off it. Since then we've had ten years of complacency from a previously excellent genre; Godspeed broke up, each Mogwai release is more tepid than the last, Sigur Ros peaked early and no one cares about Explosions in the Sky. Battles braved the lukewarm waters left by those bands in 2007 and made a great album, and now Worriedaboutsatan has done the same (despite sounding very different) with Arrivals.

They take everything that’s good about the genre - Sigur Ros’ surreal bowed guitar, Mogwai’s repetitive riffs and masterful and tense build and release, Godspeed’s ability to create a perfectly creepy soundscape - and then throw in Autechre influenced IDM on top of that. Everything is accompanied by ambient drones, but it’s never dull. Not every band can go on for eight minutes and keep the listener engaged like these guys can. It’s beautiful, it’s uncomfortable, it’s quiet, it’s loud, it’s cathartic, and it’s long but never tedious.

The album is connected by short interludes every two songs to help ease the sonic differences between sections of the album as well as to give time to digest the long offerings that come before them. The first and second sections are both darker, the middle section is a little more upbeat (especially on the Mogwai-meets-Fuck Buttons You’re In My Thoughts) and the final section ventures back to the surreal.

The second section contains what is far and away Arrivals' best moment, I Am A Crooked Man. At over ten minutes, it is the album's longest track, but it never feels difficult or laborious. The song ebbs and flows, builds and releases and encompasses just about everything that’s great about Worriedaboutsatan. Other highlights on the record include the middle sections History Is Made At Night and the final segment's Everything About You Is Silent. The latter sounds like an electronic Godspeed You Black Emperor! song, although at only eight minutes long it’s a little short by their standards.

Everything about Arrivals points to it being a landmark release for both post-rock and IDM, two genres that seem to be well past their prime. This album would be getting shitloads of attention had it been released in 2001, but in 2009 it seems destined for obscurity. The Yorkshire Evening Post called Worriedaboutsatan “the future of post-rock” after seeing a live show, and I hope they’re right. It works as both a fantastic IDM record and completely excellent and flawless post-rock album and is one of the best in any genre this year.  It pulls you into its eerie, alien world and holds you hostage to its wonder until it finally decides to let you go.