“Cinematic” is a term often used to describe post-rock and other instrumental rock/electronica/metal. A couple of years ago 65DAYSOFSTATIC created a new soundtrack for the sci-fi classic Silent Running, yet it’s their new release, Wild Light, that takes ownership of that term rather than the actual soundtrack. Displaying the confidence that comes from having a deep reserve of inspiration and truck loads of experience, the band lays down it’s position without fuss. This is not an extension of Silent Running, a return to The Fall Of Math, nor a revisiting of One Time For All Time, although there’s only one band that it could be.
For this record the guys retain piano, synth, guitar, bass and drums, with synth most prominent. Their background in EDM continues to inspire the repetition from synth that frequently takes on the rhythm role along with drums, while melodies are carried by any or all instruments, frequently at half pace. Back that with rich, detailed layers of sound and a large measure of restraint and you have the next effort by the band to share what’s inside their heads.
If it works for you, this will forever remain one of the most beautiful records you’ve ever heard. You’ll sit there in the dark listening to ‘Undertow’, completely absorbed, skin covered in goosebumps and tears welling in your eyes, gladdened that someone can paint your emotions with sound, while saddened by what the picture confirms. You’ll feel the bass line in ‘Black Spots’ enter at 0:28, take you by the hand and keep you company as you venture into the muddy uncertainty before the anger and despair builds inside. You’ll even enjoy happier times in Taipei, but above all you will feel the power of crescendocore taken to it’s ultimate conclusion as the whole record builds to a climax that makes the earth shake and your whole world crumble to its knees.
There are at least a dozen times during Wild Light that you expect a triumphant explosion of activity – thunderous drums, screaming guitar and smashed ivories – that don’t eventuate. There’s no ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ here, no ‘Await Rescue’ and although the DNA is there, no ‘Radio Protector’. Like life, this doesn’t always go where you expect or where the indicators point. Like life, there are times when Wild Light hangs to a precipice by the tips of its fingers and looks you in the eyes, knowing we are all in this together and no one can save us but ourselves.
65 have always used dynamics and contrast, but in Wild Light they have reinvented their approach, possibly in light of the Silent Running experience. The pace across the record is more even and their use of restraint to build tension is superb, taking a giant key and winding the spring tighter and tighter through each song even during the lightness of ‘Taipei’ and glimpses of release in other tracks. Simultaneously using contrasting elements of heavy and light, high and low, fast and slow emotions are kept in a state of flux – elation competes with depression, triumph with loss, confidence with fear.
It all builds to an epic and majestic finale in ‘Safe Passage’, as good a concluding track as you will find and the emotion and feel of which reminds me of ‘Falls To Climb’ by R.E.M., which finds victory in defeat, or perhaps defeat in victory. The name of the song may be literal, metaphoric or ironic, for as with all good instrumental music it’s whatever you make it, the soundtrack for your own story, your own response, your own pain, your own elation.
Wild Light sees 65DAYSOFSTATIC continue to set the standard for this arm of the post-rock galaxy with a hugely emotional story that defines “cinematic” as a musical term.
9.5/10
Gilbert Potts