Artist: LEVT
Album: Vodälse
Genre: Post-Rock, Rock
Country:
Release date: 7th of June, 2019
Released via Brick Kiln Records
As I read about LEVT for the first time, their description as an instrumental Post-Rock band that combines mellow and dreamy tones with blazing riffs, which they want to present us in an unsettling and atmospheric soundscape, sounded very interesting. I must admit, I was fixed and curious what I will hear in the next 37 minutes. Many bands try to convince potential listeners with special qualities, something many other bands, especially in the instrumental Post-Rock genre, doesn’t have. I always enjoy new variants of one of my favourite music styles.
LEVT begins, classically, by opening their album with one single guitar, a clear and echoing sound that immediately catches your ears. Little by little, more and more instruments enter in “Havsjö” and complete the sound structure. And with every instrument you can hear how they try to play with their possibilities in your boxes or headphones – the saxophone wandering between my ears – and the same with the synthesized sounds that complete the sound atmosphere. This is an element that LEVT makes use of throughout the entire album very tastefully. The song is overall always frisky in a serious way, it never loses its playfulness.
“Utryensrömmum” begins in space, or better, it feels like it starts in space. Now you hear the dreamy tones that substantiate the basis of the sound. What emerged from the riffs in the first song is now the dreamy synthesised sound. Very high riffs are dominant, a little too high for my taste – it sounds too over the top, which distracts from the structure. Good ideas overall, but it doesn’t come together in the end. With “Overägno” they start harder and without their dreamy tones. It reminds of a typical instrumental Post-Rock song in a positive way – but no classical sound design with LEVT – at the end they complete a hard sound with a xylophone, and it works. The fourth song “Stödangur” is more typical than “Overägno”, but this time it doesn’t have a special element, too bad but it nevertheless is a good song. LEVT‘s last song “Avxluta” is, similar to second one, playful in different ways. They try to define something new, something special and mostly they achieve that, but sometimes, again, it’s slightly too much, they overcharged my ear with all the different sound that are working against each other.
I must say, LEVT surprised me a lot on this album. I heard a lot of sounds and ideas I didn’t know, I experienced new variants of Post-Rock, but in a good (“Overägno”) and in bad (“Utryensrömmum”) way. However, they try to create something new, something a lot of bands don’t have the courage to do – and I appreciate that – even if they overload the sounds at some points, which concludes in an collapse of the structure. I always believe that a band, and it doesn’t matter if they are releasing their debut or standing since the 60s on stages, can improve and discover new ways to give us new sound we haven’t heard yet. I have the feeling that LEVT can be one of these bands.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
7/10
As usual, we added the favorite track(s) to our Transcended Review Playlist.
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