The concept album is, despite rumors to the contrary, not at all
\ndead. New Jersey’s Sleep Station, a cinematic rock outfit that
\nreminds yours truly of what you’d get if you put Radiohead and Pink
\nFloyd on additional serotonin, have checked in on the deep content
\nfront with their latest effort,
\nAfter The War<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Loosely based on one soldier’s experiences in World War II,
\nAfter The War<\/i> is an ambitious effort to encapsulate the war
\nexperience as emotion. Against all odds, it mostly works, making
\nAfter The War<\/i> a satisfying musical experience. The
\nmusicianship of the band is nonpariel; Dave Debiak, Daniel Goodwin,
\nRyan Ball, and Brad Paxton are talented musicians and artists in
\ntheir own right. They’re also apparently obsessive about detail; a
\ngood portion of After The War was recorded on 1940s’ vintage amps,
\nmicrophones, and wire recorders, and this laces the recording with
\nan eerily authentic ambience.<\/p>\n
So why am I not exploding with enthusiasm? Well, what keeps
\nAfter The War<\/i> in the ‘good’ rather than ‘great’
\nclassification is that for all the technical perfection, the
\nemotion falls flat on some level. I felt that this unnamed soldier
\nis lost, far from home, missing his loves, but I never really felt
\npulled in.
\nAfter The War<\/i> is a very satisfying CD on an intellectual
\nlevel, but on an emotional level it failed to really involve me,
\nexcept in a few key moments. There is, I suppose, such a thing as
\ntoo skilled.<\/p>\n
Tracks worthy of note include the opening “After The War,” the
\nheavy percussion and synth of “Drums Of War,” and the perfect,
\nheartbreaking melody of “Waiting” — the only track that really
\npulled me in emotionally and made me feel something. When it comes
\ndown to it, though, Sleep Station aims close to the target, but
\ndoesn’t quite meet its lofty goal. All Icarus references aside,
\nthat doesn’t make this CD a failure, but perhaps a good example of
\nbeing wistful at what might have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7034],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37984","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sleep-station","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37984"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}