What first plays as a study in restraint emerges as something more complex in the hands of this instrumental Perth band. Built around the core of guitarist Andrew Britton and drummer Nick Odell and here featuring bassist Joseph Ryan, Cease contributes four tracks of languid, low-impact post-rock betraying a certain evil quality that’s echoed in the album art. There’s a nonexistent pause between the tracks, which are simply labeled ‘one’, ‘two’, and so forth on the sleeve.
The longest at 16-plus minutes, the first track establishes a diligent emphasis on repetition, mood, and quite gradual change, as if a muted conversation between the instruments. By the end, though, we notice the players have inched closer to something like structure. An isolated guitar rings in ‘two’, which again reaches a more engaged interplay over its duration, as well as ‘three’, the shortest and most dynamic track. The latter sets curt peals of guitar against distorted bass while drums seek purchase alongside.
If all of that sounds somewhat clinical and detached, it’s not. The closing track, in fact, works through a cool bluesy strut for its entire 10 minutes, sounding not so much like the oblivion foreshadowed at the album’s start as an organic appeal for order in the face of chaos.
Doug Wallen
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