All the Saints – Intro To Fractions

Album Review by Euan Wallace | 10 Jan 2012
Album title: Intro To Fractions
Artist: All the Saints
Label: Souterrain Transmissions
Release date: 30 Jan

This second offering from Atlanta's All The Saints finds the band chin deep in psychedelic shoegaze. Like their debut, they continue to take cues from English masters like Spiritualized and Swervediver, combining distortion-drenched waves of noise with hazy, dream-like production. When they pull it off, as on Intro To Fractions' epic opening trio, they're a potent and powerful force.

Proving they're more than 90s alt.rock sympathists, Alteration brings to mind the more modern up-tempo abrasiveness of Liars. On EIO, Matt Lambert's effect-driven guitars create a disorientating atmosphere that gives way suddenly to a thunderous yet most tuneful chorus on the album. Consistency is brought down by brief flirtations with ear torture, chiefly the three interludes used to weave the album together; 4H Trip and Dangerflowers are a fairly joyless mess, whereas Sunk Hill is a lull too far. More mature and refined than 2008's Fire On Corridor X, but like a cake with a burnt crust a few imperfections spoil the whole.

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