Alpine Those Myriads - Psyche Review

By Dan Donnelly / November 7, 2012

rating: 3.5

Release date: 18th November. Okay. I€™m gonna start this review by saying I don€™t like art-rock. I don€™t get it. Being sent a press release about an €˜electrifying art-rocked-out band€™ didn€™t exactly send my musical senses crazy, but being the professional music journo I am (ha) I soldiered on with my job. So here you€™ll find a guy who would never, ever choose to listen to a Norwegian left-field avant garde rock band reviewing a Norwegian left-field avant garde rock band. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Alpine Those Myriads. First things first, I don€™t get the name. If you call your band Metallica, you know what you should expect. If you call your band Alpine Those Myriads, I€™m pretty certain no-one on the planet could give you a comprehensive description of what sound you€™re gonna find. In fact, I doubt the two guys responsible for the project couldn€™t tell you what their sound is. If I was to describe it in one word, I€™d say it was haunting. Subtle piano melodies wash in and out of tracks such as Head Wounds (which you can download for free from the band€™s Facebook and Twitter pages now) and WG, creating the sort of music that wouldn€™t feel out of place in a weird indie horror film. On their Facebook page, the band suggest you go into this album with an open mind, something which I would very much recommend. If you vegetate to the X Factor every week, this is not for you. Honestly though, the more I listened, the more I got sucked in. There are no radio-friendly singles here. Apart from the occasional melody, there are no sing-alongs, no tunes that you will find yourself whistling and humming along to. The minimal guitars weave some incredibly intricate textures, and the constant creative use of instrumentation (I€™m confident I can hear the rolling of dice used as percussion on Jeopardous) keeps the album interesting and fresh. Each track feels different but all somehow linked, which is a rare talent, especially considering the amount of experimentation to be found here. The synth lines used on Dingy Heart sound nothing like the more traditional guitar, bass, drums and piano to be found on Hell Is In This Well, but they feel like they fit within the ethos of what Alpine are trying to achieve. The main problem with albums like this is that experimentation and obscure structures can very quickly turn from interesting and different to overindulgent and excessive. Eight minute epic Gabrien Chronic and the Malady Bees (your guess is as good as mine on that one) borders that territory, but transcends enough ideas to narrowly avoid the descent into pretentiousness. In spite of this, I do feel like some of the tracks could do with a little bit more focus, as they can have a tendency to never reach a crescendo which it feels like they should be building towards. All in all, I€™d say my experiment into art-rock via Alpine Those Myriads was a success. After overcoming my first impressions that I could never like an album of this style, I felt it really came into its own after a more thorough listen which allowed me to fully explore everything the album had to offer. Giving it any less than three stars would be an insult, and I really respect what the band have done by making the music they want to make, forgoing any sort of media attention and creating an album that has been done solely on their own terms. The only thing is, I€™m not sure I€™d personally want to go back for repeated listens, but that just comes down to my own musical tastes, if these guys sound like your kind of thing or you€™re looking for something completely different, I heavily recommend going to the Norwegian underground for your new music fix.