Aereogramme
A Story In White

It was 2001 when Aereogramme first emerged on the flourishing English progressive-rock scene. Although they were theoretically attentive disciples of the Smashing Pumpkins and Jesus and Mary Chain, their debut “A Story In White” hinted at a more ambitious and complex style, drawing from years of slow-core, hard-rock, and shoegaze without slavishly imitating any of the three, but letting their insights flow in a stream of pure emotion.

The album opens with “The Question Is Complete,” with electronic buzzes and undefined noises, replaced by a fragmented distorted guitar riff, until the shy melody sung by the vocalist provides continuity to the fragmentary accompaniment, full of pauses and jolts. The track continues like this for about five minutes, frantic and gasping, with sudden sonic surges and a tail that gives it a dark and apocalyptic tone. “Post-Tour Pre-Judgement” is equally composite: alternating here are an acoustic verse, with a soft and bucolic inflection, and a chorus that is both heavenly and boisterous, chaotic and angelic, shouted at the top of their lungs and cradled by chirping keyboards. A sudden calm, then a slow and poignant crescendo (“…fuck the devil, fuck myself…”) until the final explosion, with the singer’s heartbreaking screams foreseeing imminent tragedy. Then silence.

The art of Aereogramme is all here, in this alternation of refinement and total disarray. In this sense, “Shouting For Joey” is the quintessence of their style: a first part that is resolved in two minutes of guitar chaos and distraught screams, opposed to a second part of delicate piano arpeggios, evocative of boundless inner landscapes. Far from being incoherent or disharmonious, this instrumental tail is the perfect evolution of its introduction, an abyssal reflection in music on the turmoil of existence. When the band definitely turns off the amplifiers, to give in to sweet serenades (“Sunday 3:52,” with a string quartet) or very quiet ballads (“Egypt,” for piano and drums only), the effect is doubly magical, now calling, with touching genuineness, the tenderness of falling in love (“Something beautiful fell into my life… I demand your skin, needing one chance”), now the disorientation, the bewilderment, the horror of losing oneself and the joy of finding oneself again.

Less sincere is “Hatred,” which was also their first single. With that too catchy chorus, the too clean sound, the too explanatory lyrics (“How can I explain my desire to run away?”), it feels as if it is very unrepresentative of their musical personality, a style exercise that slips away without engaging. More successful is “A meaningful existence,” a piano sonata swept away by a moving and compelling crescendo. The nervous riffs, the rhythm changes, the hellish screams of “Zionist Timing” do not prevent the group from hiding, behind the noise, one of the most catchy choruses of the album, nor from expanding its structure into a calm and extended ending, of dazzling beauty. It is precisely this aspect of their musicality that takes over in the two final songs: “Descending,” sullen and desolate, almost singer-songwriter-like, a descent into the couple's underworld (“And I’ll turn my back, and you’ll turn around, and I’m still further than you’ve ever found”), and “Will You Still Find Me?,” poignant, reaching towards the “paradise” and the ever-sought maturity.

It would take pages and pages to properly explain the preciousness of this album, to describe its fascinating sound inventions as well as the complex musical structures, but the only sensible advice is to totally surrender to the magic this band manages to create with the very few means at their disposal, to the sophisticated and engaging dramaturgy of these ten magnificent episodes.