GlerAkur - Can't You Wait [EP] (2016) - Review

Details

Published on Friday, 12 August 2016 02:03

Band: GlerAkur
Album title: Can't You Wait [EP]
Release date: 15 July 2016
Label: Prophecy Productions

Tracklist:
01. Can't You Wait
02. Polycide
03. Willocide

There's no secret that guys at Prophecy Productions are masters when it comes to finding new interesting, professional and inovative bands. And they found this act from Iceland, GlerAkur, a band formed by composer and sound designer Elvar Geir Sævarsson. Elvar works in National Theatre of Iceland and when he had some time off from his work he recorded bits of music just for himself, which his friend found so appealing that she sneaked it in for a once-off broadcast on the Icelandic radio. GlerAkur's richly layered walls of sound fortunately found their way onto the desk of Prophecy Productions, who did not hesitate to offer the artist a contract,... on the strength of this one track. The name GlerAkur is comprised by two Icelandic words, gler (glass) and akur (field), so in English this could mean something like field of glass...

The EP Can't You Wait is just an impression of what we can expect on GlerAkur's debut full-lenght, and judging by these three tracks with 23 minutes of running time we are in front of something immense. GlerAkur blends many different styles into one sonic mass of vibrant atmospheric and hypnotizing sound. You'll find elements of post-rock, drone, ambient, post-black, psychelic rock, doom, prog, shoegaze, krautrock and yet much more, everything put into one coherent soundscape with almost epic proportions. The music of GlerAkur is mostly instrumental, vocals come into the picture only once in the title track, but also there more or less just as an additional instrument which repetitively sings a hypnotic cradlesong. Believe me that you won't miss them, because once you are touched by magical vibes of those truly cinematic tracks you are thrown into some other dimension, out of this space and time, into a dream world, you can imagine this experience like something similar if their country mates Sigur Rós would be mixed up with Lost In Kiew, Sunn O))) and Atrium Carceri.

The first track "Can't You Wait", yeah the only one with vocals, is the closest one to post-rock, but yet it's much more turbulent and hypnotic than typical representatives of the genre. There are many layers of different electronic samples, distorted drone sounds, yet GlerAkur manages to be all the time quite melodic. Punding drum beats, reverberate strong bass lines, distorted guitar lines and myriads of different sounds are constantly deepening the atmosphere, it's just like watching how clouds are gathering before the storm. "Polycide" is half an acoustic track with captivating guitar chords, a bit similar to some stuff of Anathema, it has strong cinematic ambiental background, while the second half is purely cinematic where dark psychedelic synths and ambiental electronic samples do the magic. The absolutely stunning more than ten minutes long "Willocide" is very close to dark ambient, but rich layers of saturated drones and hypnotic samples make it somehow unique. The track is slowly intensifying until reaching the climax three minutes before the end when it explodes in the most unique way when the rest of instruments joins in and create undefeatable wall of sound.

GlerAkur offers on this EP three adventurous and cinematic tracks that can with ease take you on a meditative journey into your most inner self or contrary into the vast universe. Each one of the tracks is an unique sonic experience, often very intense with some moments of serenity. In its essence this is pretty dark and deep music, but what really makes it worth your time are all those huge multilayered atmospheric soundscapes. I'm impressed by this debut release of GlerAkur, it's an unique sonic experience that withdraws from any recent "post-anything-ambiental" releases and I can't wait for the forthcoming full-lenght album.

Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 8,5/10

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