[Album Review] SANDS - Sands
By Hamza Siddiqi
I’ve never really been into the Dirty Three. I remember enjoying Ocean Songs just fine, and it was a go-to study album for a little while – which is to say, it could fill enough of my brain-space to allow me to hit the books without frequently being distracted, but also – and this is important – without drawing my attention away from my study, as most of my favourite music does. “The study test” is one way that I flag interesting post-rock albums on WherePostRockDwells and similar music-rec channels, because so much of it is so mindlessly pleasant that as soon as I find my attention being drawn by some sick riff, cool time-play, or particularly loaded crescendo, I add it to my “for revisiting” playlist and skip to the next album.
Sands definitely isn’t study music, and their similarities to (the?) Dirty Three is/are mostly superficial, but three piece band including violin= a vaguely related introduction. They’re a post-rock trio in the same vein, but with more bite: add more metal and math-rock influences, swap out the guitar for bass, write music that gets a lot more angular, and you get the idea.
Their self-titled debut is an album that caters to all of my musical prejudices, with frequent odd-time grooves, drone, and lengthy songs that take their time building and evolving and occasionally just changing abruptly – just to make sure you’re paying attention.
Individually and as a unit, these performances are pitch-perfect; wavey, flowing violin lines weaving between themselves over driven, chunky, occasionally ambient or percussive bass; and very deliberate, controlled drumming. The freak-outs are there, but they’re delicate and restrained, with just enough spontaneity and emotion in the performances to keep me hooked. These are seriously talented musicians, who’ve developed a winning sound, and that they’re so criminally underknown and underrated in the Melbourne music scene is an absolute travesty.
Yeee
It’s hard to point out specific highlights because all six tracks are, really. Opening track Γη (Yi) sets the scene well with it’s syncopated groove and driving bass. It builds so subtlely around its violin melody that on first listen, you might feel a bit blue-balled by its abrupt ending – but that’s only because you missed how intricately it moved. It didn’t really end abrutply, you just weren’t listening. And by you, I mean *me*. Me wasn’t listening. Honeycombed starts off meditative with some of the most Dirty Three-ish sections that the band has, and builds slow into it’s mathy, distorted climax. I also don’t want to describe each track in as much detail as I did Yi.
So here are some pithy, but disjointed, observations: the album is front-loaded, in the sense that Γη, Honeycombed and Mothership are something like two thirds of the run-time, with the remaining tracks Pateras, SANDS and Apogee feeling really short in response. Side 1 and Side 2, one day, hopefully. Apogee could be a Don Caballero song, with a violin-line that juts out in every direction and a groove that shifts so strangely that it’s a wonder the band manages to stay in time. The atmospheric use of bass harmonics here is a really creative touch, especially when they’re enhanced with delay and reverb effects. it’s an approach to ambience that I don’t really hear too often.
The album is raw. Not lo-fi, but a tad bare-bones in its sonic approach, perhaps almost under-produced. This isn’t a criticism: not only does it actually sound great, but I think it helps highlight the competence, confidence and raw talent on display here. You get the sense that each track is a good take left intact, and that Sands didn’t have to do much in the mixing process to make the performances sound much better than they already did. You can hear every little pick and scrape of the violin, with enough sparseness that there isn’t really enough room for each instrument to get lost in the mix, so everything played is crystal clear whether you’re listening closely through headphones or half-assedly through phone speakers. Beautiful.
Anyway, go check out Sands (Bandcamp) and/or their Instagram account.
If you’re a fan of drone, post, or Tool, there’s something for you here.