When Icarus Falls
Circles

THE REVIEW

They have abducted me. The review could end here.
With an EP of only 4 songs (the last one being a bonus track), When Icarus Falls have taken me, wrapped me up, and enclosed me in a big box as if someone had just ordered me online from an e-commerce site, and then taken me on an ancestral journey, made of dilated guitars, emotional ups and downs, clear and twilight skies, as well as an extraordinary melodic tension that keeps you always on alert, waiting for the next harmonic loop to surrender to completely and unreservedly.

Let's be clear from the start: this record has absolutely nothing original. Don't expect any Copernican revolution of post-metal and no sound you haven't already heard hundreds of times in some other random group in the multitude of post hardcore/post metal/post something albums that have been crowding our CD racks and hard disks for some years now. Moreover, the band's influences are blatant and all too evident: 100% Cult of Luna attitude, dilations with the flavor of Russian Circles, guitar heaviness that winks at Pelican, melodies reminiscent of the lost Red Sparowes, and rhythms that closely recall the never sufficiently lamented Isis. Not to mention the infinite multitude of "minor" bands (in the sense of less known) that pass through these territories and with which a comparison would be possible: from Callisto to Rosetta, from Cloaca to Long Distance Calling, including our home-grown Three Steps To The Ocean and Amia Venera Landscape.

But if you approach this EP, the word "originality" has no meaning for you. There's another word you need, and it's called "abduction". You must let yourself be abducted, literally, and give up critical comparison and analysis of influences. I had to mention that swarm of bands just because I'm the reviewer here, but when you have the record in your hands you will only have to let its notes envelop you, forgetting the trail of groups that may have inspired it.

There are no frills in here. No atmospheric delays and long tedious post-rock-like digressions. Here, from the very first millisecond of the first song, you will be overwhelmed by hypnotic melodies that stretch out in a bed of warm emotional harmonies, with guitars interweaving perfectly in a climate of spiritual tension that massages our senses. In less than half an hour and without an ounce of boredom, these guys manage to fully hit their target: us, our hearts, our souls. A song like “Erechtheion” is emblematic in this sense, and in just over 8 minutes it succeeds where many pieces from other bands have failed, even though lasting twice as long. If there were an imaginary "Post Metal School" somewhere, this disc would be played to the students. I can already imagine the professor's speech: “See guys, there's no need to blast the delay and get lost in 20-minute melodic onanisms with your loop, just put your heart and passion into it and in a relatively short time you will have said everything you had to say and more.”

With due respect to the untouchable USA and Sweden of the Cult of Luna, now the best nation to look for post-metal new recruits proves to be Switzerland. From Bern to Geneva, each of these bands raised on watches and chocolate seems to have an extraordinary ability to handle post material wisely and intelligently, as well as a secret skill in shaping its guitar textures better than an expert potter could handle his clay. Want some examples? Knut, Impure Wilhelmina, Kehlvin, Unhold, Vancouver, Elizabeth, Zatokrev, Abraham, Rorcal and the list goes on. I only named a few, and the quality of the music in each is surprising. Not bad, considering the small size of the country of William Tell.

When Icarus Falls are no less. The band from Lausanne has managed to carve out an audience by proposing well-thought-out and engaging riffs paired with exquisite chiaroscuro atmospheres, although they continue to insist a bit too much on paths already beaten by a crowd of other bands. “Circles” was released in February 2014 (but how did I only find out about it now?), and it is the only work that separates the band from their debut album and previous demo. To be honest, I did not expect this turn to be so… “contemplative”. Of course, even in the previous full-length “Aegean” there were moments of reflection, but it was still an album strongly tied to the classic styles of post-metal at its most traditional, remaining deeply aggressive despite its elegant balance between melody and compactness.
Here, instead, the keyword is “atmosphere”. Or rather, there is a better one: “contemplation”. The guitars envelop like a warm blanket, and the screamed voice that peeks through between arpeggios serves only to involve us even more in this journey through cosmic space. Even the lyrics are no less profound than the music, as in the reflection on the effects that technology can have in Western society in “The Great North”.
Occasionally, the pace picks up and the distortions become sharp, but unlike the previous album, here they are more flashes of anger than foundations supporting the structure of the piece. So, the environment that surrounds us becomes perfectly “contemplative”, the ears rest little in the territories of rage and then quickly return to immerse in a choral harmony, with a relentless drumbeat supporting the guitar fumes, mystical vapors that hover in the air and relax us, tirelessly digging into the hidden corners of our emotions. And as we get lost in this ocean, we end up feeling drugged and unable to stop. As I write this review I still have the record in my ears, and I think it's the third or fourth time I'm listening to it today. Not that it couldn't get tiresome if listened to too often. Actually, to be honest, it's a somewhat repetitive record, if by repetitive we mean the preference to focus on certain harmonic circles rather than varying in time changes and concatenated riffs. But to be honest I couldn't care less about its repetitiveness, and indeed I believe that tomorrow I will listen to it three or four more times, if not more. And in urging you once again to seriously consider the Swiss post-metal scene, I really hope this EP can please you as much as it pleased me.
If Minsk were the spiritual heirs of Neurosis, after this EP I'd say that When Icarus Falls could be the spiritual heirs of Cult of Luna. Maybe not immediately, maybe it will take a few more albums in between to refine their still raw resources. But if they give it their all and don't make big mistakes, well, gentlemen, that's the path. And excuse me, if that's not enough.
Slip on your slippers, dear sirs, pull this pearl out of the oyster that contains it, and enjoy.