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The Blood Choir - 'Houses Of The Sun' Album Review

Sean Friswell
Jul 23, 2018
2 min read

Tracklist:

1. Houses Of The Sun

2. Cold Waves

3. The Boat

4. Switching Off The Perfume Garden

5. Drake

6. Horseback

7. Outward Travel Must Not Be In The Past

8. White Bear

9. Simon's Beach

10. Tide

The Blood Choir's music doesn't demand much focus from the listener (although it does gently persuade you to pay attention), yet rewards listening anyway, this music is like the perfect antidote to an overdose of the overcomplex Progressive music I ordinarily love to binge on, for while there is some complexity here, and certainly that cannot be a bad thing, we have no intense shifting time signatures or jarring speedy changes and runs crowding the sonic spectrum.

What we have here echoes with a long decay and a generally slow rhythmic pulse, what sounds on early impressions like nonsense lyrics that just sound good (which I acknowledge may just be going over my head) occupy a central space amid sparse arrangements of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, in small chunks it doesn't seem like this album is doing a great deal and focusing on it in this way is, to my mind, losing some of the calming effect that one experiences settling down and listening through it all in one sitting.

The Blood Choir have a sound that is somewhat familiar (I may have heard their previous album unaware of who they were but this seems unlikely), the sensation, I feel, comes from the vocals, The Blood Choir's singer sounds a lot like Karl Hyde of Underworld (a great thing, I love me some Underworld), the music of The Blood Choir is not like, or unlike Underworld though. While this album may not be for everyone, those who enjoy Post-Rock will surely appreciate this, the band's second offering after their six-year hiatus.