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For centuries, man has been looking to the stars for guidance and inspiration. While Austin’s Balmorhea may not need to cross the Atlantic with astrolabe in hand, the five-piece, in their fourth LP release Constellations, uses the heavens and the sea for a muse, crafting out of it a sparse and vast album far different than their previous musical outings. At once bare and beautiful, the band eschews the high-tech cosmos stereotypes of ‘space music,’ and opts instead for a more human, analog sound, capturing the essence of the cold void with the warm sounds of wood and sinew.
Dusting off the telescope lens, the first offering, “To the Order of Night,” is a slow and empty start. Gentle piano keys are left to ring out, alone, as ambient wood scratching noises of Travis Chapman’s upright bass creak and flutter like a film reel left spinning too long. While poignant, the track does little to capture and pull in the listener; as the introduction to Balmorhea’s loose concept, this song gets a free ride in the same way as many of …Trail Of Dead’s openers do – it is effective on first listen, but hardly memorable as a song. It also establishes a trend that reiterates throughout the album: the band seems to focus too much on the emptiness of space and blinds itself to the stars. Climaxes are few and far between, if they come at all.
“Bowsprit” is one of these rare bodies. Arguably the best song on the album, this second track starts off with quiet, plucking acoustic guitar, and advances as bass and violin slowly ebb in. The closest thing to a song with full movement on the first half of Constellations, “Bowsprit” is the Pole Star that keeps the listener moving along, and is a treat to behold. The sound of feet slamming down on a hardwood floor, along with the nimble banjo thrumming melodic lines, embue the song with human spirit, with hope and awe. This is the music of dances by the fire and reacquainted friends. Aisha Burns’ resounding and restrained violin adds yet another layer of intensity and is the final sound we hear before the track vanishes without a trace.
“Winter Circle “ sounds like the opening clip shown upon first being seated in a planetarium, before the James Earl Jones-esque voice starts pointing out stars while ignoring the bright “EXIT” sign that drowns out the projected sky and grows more and more attractive with each passing moment. A somber chorus hums inchoate syllables that build along with their piano accompaniment, but fade out just as quickly when a discordant hand falls onto piano keys and disrupts the whole thing.
“Herons,” “Constellations,” and “On the Weight of Night” offer more of the same, in quiet variations of minor-keyed doom-pondering and wonder. The latter, being the most novel, incorporates percussion and organ for the first time in the album, and does build to some degree, but again, is more of a tease than a release.
Once more showing signs of life, “Steerage and the Lamp” follows a vigorous piano line whose notes fall like winter rain before an occasional lurch between movements. Nicole Kern’s cello casts long sustained notes that contrast nicely with the staccato piano while the violin attempts to make peace between the two. This track almost demands a listen on rainy nighttime car-rides, and the way the violin and bass occasionally enter with plucked atonal notes shows an extreme degree of craft and attention to the overall track.
For all their success staying true to their concept, Balmorhea seems all too aware that, between the occasional point-of-interest, the night sky is mostly just cold, empty and still. Recreating it without editing out at least some of the space between seems to reduce the album to a few points of redemption lost in a sea of miasmic near-silence. While some may find the calming tracks entrancing and well-constructed – and honestly, there is no qualm to raise with them except their number and length – others will fume at the lack of a payoff. If the listener has to make sure his stereo hasn’t accidentally been unplugged more than twice during a 38 minute album, something is amiss.
Yet band architects Rob Lowe and Michael Muller, after albums that have increasingly gestured to grandiosity, seem to realize on Constellations that the audience is holding out for the supernovas, the singularities, the snake-like tongues of flame emitted from a thousand-billion stars, and consciously challenge the expectations with their silence. But one can listen to silence without a stereo. The blackness may humble us, but it is the stars that we give human form and weave our history around. For an album titled Constellations, Balmorhea could have at least connected more of the dots.
Mp3 from Constellations:
Bowsprit
Websites:
http://balmorheamusic.com
Myspace
