Audio By Carbonatix
Keep Dallas Observer Free
We’re aiming to raise $10,000 by April 26. Your support ensures Dallas Observer can continue watching out for you and our community. No paywall. Always accessible. Daily online and weekly in print.
Upon first listen to Landmarks, the debut full-length from the Dallas-based Air Review (and one of the discs reviewed in this past week’s paper) it’s easy to see how someone might, at first, toss off the band as just another middle-of-the-road modern rock act with a serious case of Radiohead influence.
But multiple listens reveal something far greater: a band with impressive instrumental chops and a serious, impressive knack for vocal harmony. And though there are indeed some truly rocking moments on Landmarks, it’s in the change-of-pace tracks on the disc where the band, turning down the bombast in exchange for more thought-out arrangement, finds its strongest footing.
Take, for example, album-closer “Jura,” which the band was kinda enough to pass along to DC9 readers as a free download and stream. Check it out after the jump.
Bonus mp3:
There’s just something majestic and score-like about that descending choral harmony. And an impressive restraint, too, in the instrumental portions of this song, which alluringly teases at a crescendo that it, quite cleverly, never attains.
Landmarks earns its digital release today, and Air Review performs Wednesday, October 7, at Trees, with Austin’s The Rocketboys and McAllen’s Dignan.
