Love Of Cartography

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When sleepmakeswaves entered LaCueva studio in Byron Bay with producer Nick DiDia (Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam), the instrumental post-rock outfit’s goal was to make their second album a more positive, upbeat record than 2011 debut <i>...And So We Destroyed Everything</i>. Inspired in part by the arrival of powerhouse drummer Tim Adderley, they were also determined to capture the intensity of their live show while creating a clutch of songs that would work well in that environment. Enter energetic openers “Perfect Detonator” and “Traced in Constellations,” colossal rock songs that introduce a more pronounced electronic element to the band’s repertoire while staying true to the Sydney outfit’s trademark mix of epic, intertwining guitar work and cinematic command of dynamics. The eight-and-a-half-minute centerpiece, “Emergent,” takes its name from a scientific and philosophical theory about the evolution of life, matter, and thought called “emergence,” a fitting moniker for a song that evolves through a complex web of moods and musical ideas. The LP is not a singularly positive affair—witness the dark, aggressive “The Stars Are Stigmata”—but it is rarely less than spectacular.

via Apple Music