A Burial at Sea – Close to Home (Review)

Time. Time flies. Time is sand slipping through your fingers. Time is money. Time is pretty much everything and affects a large part of our lives. Besides lifetime, time spent preparing food is probably the most important. Those who ignore instructions here will not be pleased with the result. Particularly with dishes like the traditional German stew, it is essential that it simmers properly to fully unleash its flavorful power. In some music genres, it feels the same way: Post-Rock is the stew among genres.

Just under four years after their self-titled debut, the Irish band A Burial At Sea presents Close to Home, the “brass-led blend of shoegaze, math-metal, and blissed out afro-jazz” successor. With the support of the Berlin label Pelagic Records, they have found the perfect home for it. Away from the aforementioned press text, most listeners would roughly classify the band as Post-Rock, capturing a large part of the sound spectrum.

The recipes and ingredients offered in Close to Home are largely known, but A Burial At Sea manages to create their own distinctive touch with the addition of brass instruments. The atmospheric opener “Páirc béal uisce” (translated to “Park by the water”, if one were to believe a popular search engine) ticks off a lot from the Post-Rock ingredient list: ethereal mood, ever-swelling guitars, and of course the obligatory crescendo at the end.

“Brevity is the soul of wit” and rarely has a saying been interpreted and related to a post-metal act in a culinary way. A Burial At Sea do not let their dishes simmer as long as genre colleagues like Mogwai or Russian Circles. Most songs here are in the four-minute range and manage to present their special moments without prolonged cooking. Only the closing track “DALL” approaches the six-minute mark, sounding more like “Nothing is as spicy as it’s cooked.”

“Too many cooks spoil the broth,” they say, but borrowing inspirations is not what is meant by that. The auditory palate is taken on a journey through many different cultures and countries on Close to Home. “Hy-Brasil” reminds at times of the post-black metal French band Alcest during the Shelter era (especially their song “Opale“), “Gorse bush on fire” borrows the Japanese guitars from the latest Envy album The Fallen Crimson, and the mentioned brass instruments give the remaining songs that special touch (or whatever you may call what comes out of such instruments).

It is not good cuisine if it is not made out of friendship for the one it is meant for (in the vein of Paul Bocuse). A Burial At Sea cook for all stew-lovers who don’t have much time but don’t want to miss out on a special taste experience.