Landing

This Utah quartet’s sixth full-length outing, in a mere four years, finds them further settling into the sticky realms of rhythm without losing their original slowcore/dreamscape roots. Drawn out and characteristically spacey, Brocade extends upon ideas introduced on their last album, Sphere, but heads deeper into Krautrock territory, leaving most of that album’s post-rock inflections at the door. The eight-minute opening track "Loft” is perhaps the strongest with its simple, Can-like rhythms weaving in and out of each other to uplifting effect. "Yon” follows tout suite with a Kraftwerk-ian synth melody (like the opening to "The Hall of Mirrors”) laying the structure for a hypnotic piece filled with atmospheric analog electronics and ambient Fripp and Eno-style guitar beds. "Spiral Arms” ups the dreamy textures for a mellow, drifting segment, and "How to be Clear” is a blast from the shoegazer past replete with buried vocals and circling drums. Finally, "Music for Three Synthesizers” revises the sparse Kraftwerk homage for nearly 17 minutes of often quite limp interplay. Brocade isn’t the killer Landing album we’ve been waiting for, but it’s still full of promise and charm.