To Destroy A City - To Destroy A City

drowned in sound

A songwriter undergoing 'earth-shaking personal events' can either a) do a Mose Allison (shoot wife, transform event into hit jingle) or b) team up with two dear friends and thrash out the fastest post-rock album in history. To Destroy A City chose b) when something terrible happened to them last year - not quite ready to apply for gun licences/all get Mohicans, they instead set out to cross-pollinate electronica and Explosions In The Sky-style rock hymns. With n5MD providing funding and guidance - home to Lights Out Asia and Port Royal, who’ve done similar cross-pollinations in the past - To Destroy A City is exactly what you’d expect from three skilled and bereaved multi-instrumentalists: beatific synths, guitar haikus, long shambling build-ups and enough hold-everything moments to make you think: 'Wow. Let’s take up meditating.'

The hold-everything moments - those instances when you’re on shuffle, have to stop, tap your MP3 player and see what it was that just grabbed you - are what makes To Destroy A City such an engaging if sadly formulaic album. At 41 instrumental minutes there are a lot of whinnying emotions to plough through, and many listeners are likely to give up once the sea noises and guitar pedals start on ‘Metaphor’. 'Two-thousand-and-three was that way,' will be the default response of hovering producers, wary of the cinematic slo-mo which could be better used for kissing film stars. Luckily n5MD have faith in their trio, and once the fuse has been lit the gloom soon gives way to rocket fuel. Regrettably, it takes five tracks to ignite: ‘The Marvels of Modern Civilization’ gathers keyboards, a trance beat and stops just short of being the Terminator theme, the band adding a bucket of classic lasers to sound like a deleted scene from Drive. If that wasn’t Eighties enough for you, ‘Before The Outside’s Gone’ merges Cocteau Twins guitar with a runaway telegraph readout, then adds swathes of ambience care of one of the players/programmers. His Eno flourishes are just introspective enough, building to a flinch at 3’40” when someone switches on the bass.

If the emotions ran this slickly throughout the entire record, To Destroy A City would be a guaranteed sleeper. Unfortunately, its ambition is a little weighed with duds, making you wonder if eight tracks isn’t perhaps two tracks too many (allegedly five of them came straight off the bat when the Bad Thing happened last year). ‘Ilium’ shows off the record’s only vocal; a Lee Marvin impersonator reading T.S. Elliot quotes where ”Between the idea and the reality / Between the motion and the act” sounds like Fry & Laurie’s bonkers perfume ad. ‘Goodbye, Dear Friend’ is sadly as risible as its title, so desperate to recreate Chariots of Fire you can feel the band stripping down to vest and pants. It even repeats the trick from ‘Before The Outside’s Gone’ of using bass to spice up its second half... Could the cross-pollinators be running low on fertile flowers?

Overall, no, and by anyone’s standards To Destroy A City is a rich, accessible debut. Considering most of this record was written and recorded in under 12 months - as opposed to the lifetime most starters-out get - Andrew Welch, Jeff Anderson and Michael Marshall can each light up a cigar. The knowledge they’re from Chicago comes as an added shock, too: surely men this capable of fusing white noise and melody must all hail from Iceland. And though a lot of the record could double as Christmas market music (expect to hear ‘Narcotic Sea’ everywhere in Chicago anytime after Halloween), there are enough dustbowl guitars/rousing passages/John Murphy moments to show TDAC are a band with scope - and they won’t dare rest until they’ve connected with everyone, one way or another. Got a crush that’s being terminally ignored? The buildups/payoffs here will floor you. Looking for music in a party political broadcast that shows the country is working? The choruses here are tailor-made, and are lot cheaper to licence than Coldplay.

[sic]magazine

n5MD, the label that started life in promotion of emotive IDM artists, now seems to collect indietronica acts like Panini Cards. The latest, Chicago’s To Destroy A City sound from their name as though they should be gargantuan, metal-infused post rockers when in fact they seem to have spent the last ten years listening to the cream of post-rock, nu-gaze and ambient techno. This self-titled debut tips its hat to half the n5 roster. To give a concrete example, ‘Philosophy of a knife’ is pure Lights Out Asia and the whole album would make a fine companion piece to the recent Winterlight record. But To Destroy A City go beyond incestuous. They’re reaching for something bigger, something else, something we haven’t quite seen (heard) before in the fuzzy world of programming and guitars.

A lot of this genre takes its blueprint from one of the indie greats and then delivers its own version, alive to the possibilities of the latest software and techniques. I don’t see this as a drawback or a criticism at all. Cocteau Twins and Slowdive reign supreme as influences, as, of course, do Mogwai. If I had a dollar for every time I spotted the ‘Fear Satan’ or ‘Helicon’ scales I could probably afford my own pro-tools. To Destroy A City don’t quite fall into the same trap. If anything, Explosions In The Sky and God Is An Astronaut seem clearer influences. Yes, underneath the veil of amorphic cloud swell they actually are laying waste to cities.

It’s rare for me to love whole albums of this ilk. To Destroy A City is no exception. There are pieces on here that work less well. I don’t much care for ‘The Marvels Of Modern Civilization’ but it doesn’t outstay its welcome. That said, I can tell you that when the album works, it really works. The best pieces here are fabulous. The glacial, ‘Ilium’ and the stately ‘Goodbye Dear friend’ are clear examples of this.

I think back to times when I used to hesitate over technical aspects of my reviews. Are they real guitars? Are they using delay or chorus? Is that programming? I have long since abandoned any notions of precision there. Music is music, no matter what the technique or process. As evidenced here on To Destroy A City. If this recording is the result of any mechanical or artificial process, perhaps somebody could explain how it sounds so organic and natural.

We play out to the strains of ‘March’ which I think reprises the theme of ‘Goodbye Dear Friend’ before layering on an exquisite piano refrain.

It’s beautiful.

diskant

Siden de tre herrer Andrew Welch, Jeff Anderson og Michael Marshall dannede To Destroy A City (TDAC) i Chicago tilbage i sommeren 2010, er det lykkedes dem at skabe et yderst ambitiøst og komplekst debutalbum. Den tranceagtige post-rock består af temaer, der stiger og falder og modulerer sig i et ambient, elektronisk og stille pulserende landskab, kun afbrudt af langsomt brændende mure af guitarstøj og enkelte vokale indskud som i nummeret ”Illium”, hvor reciteringen af T.S. Eliots digt ”The hollow Men” pludselig skaber bro til den fysiske verden, hvor ord bliver til nye lyde og til en naturlig del af et organisk hele.

Der er ingen tvivl om, at TDAC har en fantastisk evne til at lave ambient, stærkt følelsesladede konstruktioner af lyd, der emmer af liv og bevægelse, og som på denne selvbetitlede debut rammer det høje ambitionsniveau, bandet har sat sig selv fra starten. De otte skæringer er skabt med lige dele analoge instrumenter og elektroniske virkemidler, der suggererer og forfører lytteren i alle retninger og med en vedvarende følelse af vellyd og nærvær. Der er et behageligt fravær af påtaget melankoli og dyrkelse af mol og tungsind, uden at musikken bliver letbenet og lystigt legende. Der er derimod en volumen og en fylde i musikken, der truer med at flyde over og bemægtige sig hele rummet på en ganske behagelig og selvfølgelig måde. Begreber som tid og sted bliver opløst og erstattet af lys og mørke, lyd og stilhed på en balanceret og ikke mindst velkomponeret måde.

Musikken vil sikkert tiltale dyrkere af den mere avancerede elektroniske ambient, men uden hverken dubbede beats eller IDM. Der er et tydeligt slægtskab med navne som Boards Of Canada, Bitcrush og The American Dollar, og dette yderst vellykkede og flotte debutalbum kan varmt anbefales til alle fans af den brusende ambient post-rock, der bygger på en simpel grundstruktur, der bliver udbygget med lag på lag af nye strukturer og modulationer af anslåede temaer i musikken. Et album, man bliver i rigtig godt humør af at lytte til!

de:bug

Entdeckung des Monats. Und natürlich aus Chicago, wobei jeglicher Restposten Postrock aus dem Sound dieser Band ein für alle Mal verschwunden ist. Das Label weist darauf hin, dass ein Großteil des Materials des Debütalbums in kurzer Zeit aus dem Trio herausgesprudelt sei, und genauso dringlich klingen die Songs, bei aller shoegegazerten Verliebtheit in den Horizont. Ganz und gar großartig, mitreißend, verlässlich deep und verschmitzt britisch.

Windy City Rock

If To Destroy A City's chosen moniker--a peculiar infinitive in lieu of the traditional noun route--implies a kind of violence, their music itself delves more into the wake of that violence, the quiet and horrified sensation that floods destruction's aftermath. The post-rock ensemble's self-titled debut LP paints a world almost delirious with its own sadness, a world washed in echoes and loss. While many artists may fill the more ambient genres with limp and aimless drones, To Destroy A City thankfully reminds me of the raw power post-rock can assume when woven with skill.

As far as the previous generation of the genre goes, To Destroy A City follows Texan outfit Hammock's shadow most closely. Upon first listen, the somber and misty textures on the LP could be easily mistaken for Kenotic b-sides. But this isn't 2004, and To Destroy A City isn't out to make a record that's existed for half a decade. They begin in the fertile ground the aughts laid down for post-rock, as the perfect drizzled streams of opener "Metaphor" show us, but quickly kick the sounds of their predecessors into the present. To Destroy A City takes those slow, sad washes and bones them up with harder industrial beats. The resulting compositions are still dark, still foggy, but invigorated with new momentum.

The crossing of genres is demonstrated best on the tight little knot of a song 'The Marvels of Modern Civilization', which provides the opposite of a pause between aching Sigur Ros-reminiscent stretches. It's an example of the record flexing its muscles for a moment, a flash of teeth from a sleeping giant. While the larger songs that make up the meat of the record may be ultimately better and more polished, it's this moment that ought to make you the most excited for To Destroy A City's future as a force within their genre.

If you loved Hammock six or seven years ago, you will find yourself loving To Destroy A City for the same reasons. Even those best acquainted with ambient electronica through The Social Network's soundtrack should find plenty to enjoy--and maybe even to be transformed by--here. The LP stands as a solid, gorgeous debut from a band that already promises to reinvigorate this generation of post-rock with fascinating new work.

pop matters

This pleasing debut succeeds as wallflower music that remains emotionally interesting. Chicago trio To Destroy a City creates ambient post-rock that uses an interplay of epic musical colours to build variations on simple themes. Waves of distortion swell to profound conclusions on tracks like “Before the Outside’s Gone” and “Narcotic Sea”. This reviewer was particularly pleased to hear that “Ilium”, the only non-instrumental track on the album, features a recitation of a passage from the T.S. Eliot poem “The Hollow Men”. The pulsing rhythms of “The Marvel’s of Modern Civilization” move toward electronica territory, evoking a night-time cityscape of the future. To Destroy a City creates a lush sonic vibe; the band’s use of percussion sounds and ability to steer away from instrumental doldrums are a bit reminiscent of Sigur Rós. Despite a few meandering passages, the music develops nicely. Fans of Trent Reznor, Hammock, and the aforementioned Sigur Rós will be compelled to spin this late into the night hours.

textura

Not inaccurately, n5MD itself suggests listeners might be tempted to draw analogies between To Destroy A City and kindred n5MD acts Lights Out Asia and port-royal. Certainly To Destroy A City tills a similar field to its label brethren, though the blend of shoegaze and post-rock the Chicago-based trio's issued on its self-titled debut album holds up very well on its own terms, thank you very much. It's got all of the epic drama and guitar-laced atmosphere one associates with those genres, and one comes away from the recording impressed by how accomplished the album's emotive set-pieces are for such a relatively new band. A typical piece assembles reverb-heavy guitar lines, electric piano, synth washes, electronic beat progamming, and live drumming into a stately setting of about six minutes duration, making “Narcotic Sea,” a dramatic slow-builder that climaxes in a rush of guitar-drums-and-electric piano splendour, a representative example of the band's music.

With eight pieces clocking in at forty-one minutes, the album's succinct, too, as the group times the individual pieces wisely—neither too short nor too long, each sticks around long enough to convincingly make its case before ceding the stage to its successor. Often mournful and melancholy in tone, the album's tracks nevertheless convey measured hopefulness and uplift as they work towards their oft-soaring resolutions. To Destroy A City is thoughtfully sequenced, too, with the album following a clear trajectory that begins with the stately “Metaphor,” where sparse piano chords and atmospheric guitar peals establish a melancholy mood, and then carries on into “The Marvels of Modern Civilization,” an New Order-esque jaunt that offers a counterpoint to the brooding character of the other tracks. In keeping with its title, the penultimate “Goodbye, Dear Friend” is understandably elegiac, while the closing “March” works a bit of Sigur Ros-like grandeur into its intensifying attack. For the record, though Andrew Welch (drums, synths, programming), Jeff Anderson (guitar, keyboards), and Michael Marshall (guitar) only formally pooled their respective talents in the summer of 2010, the refined product of their labours sounds like the work of a band that's been together much longer.