Since their formation during the northern summer of 2010, Chicago post-rock trio To Destroy A City certainly haven’t wasted time working towards this debut self-titled album, with five of the eight tracks collected here apparently being written during the band’s first two months of existence. As you’d expect, there’s a strong emphasis on slow-burning widescreen atmosphere and shimmering layers of reverb-drenched guitar, but in this case it’s often the use of stripped back rhythmic programming alongside live drums and the incorporation of colder sounding synth elements that results in some of the more intriguing moments here. ‘Narcotic Sea’ provides a good illustration of the above qualities, slowly shifting from an atmospheric opening section comprised of slow, pulsing programmed beats, trailing guitar shimmers and eerie synth drones into a widescreen bleed of ascending guitars and crashing live drums reminiscent more of Mogwai or Explosions In The Sky.
‘Ilium’ meanwhiles sees an ominous spoken word intro leading into a wash of slow ebbing guitars and distant muffled beats that suddenly snaps into sharp focus, crashing out into a triumphant yet melancholic wall of trailing guitars, live drums and delicate keys that virtually begs for visual accompaniment, while ‘Before The Outside’s Gone’ manages to kick off with a jazz-shuffle in its step before the crunching guitars and crashing live drums suddenly rear up, taking things off into a post-metal flameout more akin to the likes of Isis. All of the above is extremely well-charted terrain by now, and while the unexpectedly tech-house centred ‘The Marvels Of Modern Civilisation’ certainly offers up a stylistic diversion, it sits slightly awkwardly against the rest of the predominantly slow-burning tracklisting here. Beautifully crafted stuff that unfortunately doesn’t offer much in the way of real surprises.
Chris Downton
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