So close. This 2016 debut comes so close, so many times, to being something genuinely brilliant, before Astronoid make some or other decision that totally blows it for me. They’re described as post-metal, which I guess is like post-rock but with louder guitars. We’re into fairly nebulous territory genre-wise, but the upshot, one would hope, is that these guys have the freedom of the park in which to strut their stuff.
Opener “Incandescent” starts off with massive guitars, slow pounding drums, and some blackly symphonic keys. So far so good, if not especially imaginative, but then halfway through, the song switches to a major key. The guitars could be from a particularly ambitious Blink-182 song; it’s massive and noisy but delightfully sugary. And that’s before the vocals come in. They’re nothing short of angelic, multi-tracked and ethereal but full of hope and light and life. There’s a bit of Cocteau Twins in here, even; at other times it’s like a reverse Fucked Up, gorgeous singing over jagged instrumentation. When the drums switch to blast beats for the last minute, I’m a little less keen, but I’m very much in.
Then, they swiftly chuck me out again. Literally the instant “Up And Atom” (their most streamed on Spotify) starts, I’m doing yuck faces. It’s ridiculously busy, the blast beats rolling through from the previous track, the lead guitar now playing an annoying little riff that just doesn’t sound good. Annoyingly it makes what I liked best about the first track - those wonderful ethereal vocals - turn to shit, too. Spread over this frenetic splosh, they’re less otherworldly and more emo singer lacking in confidence and slathering on the effects.
There are moments of greatness elsewhere on Air. The last couple of minutes of “Resin” are fantastic, with the vocals allowed to stand out more than they are for the most part. Singer Brett Boland (who’s the only credited vocalist on the record, meaning it’s just him multi tracked ad infinitum, which annoys me for some reason) goes an ascending charge over a mostly atonal, thundering backing. The title track’s a winner, too: the guitars are busy again but riffing on a nice energetic octave pattern that you can hook into, rather than just leaping here, there, and everywhere to little effect.
But there are some real stinkers, too. “Obsolete” is maybe my least favourite track, a post-hardcore effort that isn’t the kind of music I can imagine I’ll ever warm to. Almost every track on here is over five minutes, which is often suitable for the ambitious soundscapes Astronoid can craft at their best, but here it’s just a deluge. They slap a vocoder section over an aggy, hard picked riff, and to say the two don’t mesh is an understatement. There’s also a touch of the Imagine Dragons to these guys. “Homesick”, especially, you just know these guys envisioned themselves playing in stadia the world over, with their global fanbase swaying and holding lighters aloft. Really not for me.
I think the first track is an absolute stunner, and on plenty of occasions they tap into a sound that’s right up my street. Other parts of the record leave me cold or worse. I’m out on a limb here because this was very well received; it’s a matter of taste, nothing more, but it’d be less annoying to just hate the record. Could’ve been a contender.
