Sincerity is difficult to fake – ask any politician in the build-up to an election – yet post-rock Manchester collective Pijn (pronounced “pine”) keep it real on their powerful, atmospheric, heartfelt new album, From Low Beams Of Hope (Floodlit Recordings).
This much-anticipated instrumental collection is ambient, abstract, and avant-garde, sonically versatile and fascinatingly textured, with poetic spoken words, keys, cello (Maggie Lister), violin (Claire Northey), audio samples, off-kilter sound effects, and inventive looping.
The superb arrangements, and the control of mood, tone, and tempo, have helped propel Pijn – pronounce it “Pine”, apparently – into the very top rank of “this kind of thing”, if indeed there is anything quite like this.
Is it Post-Rock, tho? Post-Metal? Art-Rock? Prog? Is it a complex, coruscating symphony, or a jazzy, klezmer Black Country, New Road?
This assured and adventurous ensemble have already been compared (if indeed there is anything quite like this) to Russian Circles and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, but (to these ears, anyway) much of From Low Beams Of Hope is more Bristol’s Portishead, via Glasgow political warriors Ashenspire, with bits of Edinburgh’s We Were Promised Jetpacks.
You may agree some of these references are particularly relevant (or irrelevant) on initially thoughtful, musing opener “Our Endless Hours”, drummer Jon Vernon and the bass sounds leading the way (Ed Bottomley, who also shines on sax, is credited on bass, with Thomas Ragsdale on bass VI as well as keys and tape loops).
The attention to detail throughout, the poise and pacing, are inviting and beguiling, the songwriting ambitious and expansive. “On The Far Side Of Morning”, at nine minutes-plus, is the shortest of the four tracks.
There is something grittily convincing about it all, something, dare one say, very working-class, authentic and dramatic, sweat and toil, down among the Edie Doyles and the Eddie Coyles, with David Thewlis’ Naked boy, as the blood boils.
“Carved Expanse” keeps the bar high, the emotions in turmoil, the heart in the mouth, ratcheting up the tension, ratcheting open your mind, one notch at a time.
The aforementioned “On The Far Side Of Morning” is another class act, strewn with heavy guitar (Joe Clayton, also producer), punctuated by spot-on drums, splashes, and fills, the whole thing soaring, aching, epic, and emotional.
Twelve-and-a-half minute, cathartic closer “A Thousand Tired Lives” again nails the mood, nails the frustration, nails the determination and the will, slow-building to an epic, raucous, and affecting middle section before an ethereal, evocative outro inspires jigsaw thoughts of pastoral horror movies, forays into deep space, midweek misadventures down the pub and into the bookies.
Quite simply, this is one of the albums of the year (if indeed there is anything quite like this) – a long time in the making, worth waiting for, eminently listenable, brim-filling the heart and soul.
The title, From Low Beams Of Hope, recalls Oscar Wilde’s oft-quoted, much-magpied line: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars …”
Pijn are wonderfully, naturally sincere. They get my vote.
Buy the album here:
https://pijn.bandcamp.com/album/from-low-beams-of-hope
9 / 10
CALLUM REID